Innocence and the Twilight Time

Some nights I have trouble drifting off to sleep.

I have so much on my mind: The events of the day, swirling; troubles bubbling up, worries weighing heavily, all stirred together into a dark disturbing dissonance. Most nights, however, when the convergence of daily troubles and worries from days and weeks and months before, becomes dim and ephemeral — still I usually fall into a dreamless, restless sleep.

Ironically, the soundest sleep I experience is the sleep right before the alarm clock rings, when I have to get up and get ready to face the challenges, surprises, and wonders of the new day. There’s a Twilight Time in which I live when I first awaken that is the antithesis of the troubled moments at night when I’m trying to fall asleep. The moments of the Twilight Time are pure, innocent, peaceful, full of grace, and far too evanescent.

The Twilight Time is what I call the brief interlude of magical moments and bliss that I experience when I first awaken from a sound sleep. The Twilight Time is that fleeting time at the beginning of each new day between sleep and wakefulness when all is right with the world.

As if a child, I lie there in my newborn innocence, wonderfully still and at peace. All my worries and troubles and fears were vanquished even if only for these few precious moments. There is a new day to discover, my mind free of its chains and now free to wander. There are no worries to add gravity to my thoughts. The Twilight Time is transitory and because it is, so fleeting, it is precious. The Twilight Time gives me respite from the storms, harbor from the angry seas, and a moment of peace and light in which I am reborn at the beginning of each new day.

In the Twilight Time, the loved ones who were taken from me by death, live, old friends are new friends, and I have not one worry to anchor my thoughts or drag them down to the bottom of a muddy bay.

In the Twilight Time, I am awake and I am at peace. I have wings.

On some lucky mornings, especially in spring and early summer, birds sing caressing me with soothing songs in the sweet interlude of the Twilight Time. Their soft, sweet lullabies lull me awake and bring a profound peace to the Twilight Time.

On other lucky mornings, the sonorous sound of morning showers becomes a symphony playing only for me. I watch in my fleeting moments of innocence as the rain dances on the window sill. The showers add a majestic, magical weave to the peaceful tapestry of the Twilight Time.

Sometimes I wish the Twilight Time would come stay for the whole day, but then I know if it did it wouldn’t be as special or bring its brief respite from the turmoil and tribulations that I have allowed life to drill too deep down into my soul.

The Twilight Time is a cleansing time, a time when I touch the light of the last vestiges of my innocence and touch, all too briefly, a sweet and heavenly peace.