Between night and morning

Just after 5am: Up with my usual pregnant heartburn, waiting for the antacids to kick in. The sky is that perfect shade of pre-dawn gray, growing subtly lighter with each passing moment. Something about that particular gray awakens a longing in me that I can't explain, even to myself. Naturally, I do some facebooking to pass the time, as the sky's waning dark gives way to morning and the scent of its cooling finds its way to my senses.

My tiny water glass is now empty, and my head is full. What is it about the between hours that stir these things in me? Perhaps because the between-time has always felt like home and it calls to places in me that ache with a sweet desire to become something more than I am and to venture out into wonder and mystery. It's almost as if on a sub-conscious level, I'm looking for a secret doorway that only opens when the time and scenery are right. What would happen if I found it? Would I be afraid to step through or would I rush into it, never to return to this plane?

Wait. I hear traffic and there's movement in the parking lot. Damn. I missed it, yet again...but perhaps only just barely. It's funny how we can long so feverishly for things we can't define. Is it a literal place or one that's locked away in my mind? That door I'm looking for is ancient, and wooden in a wall of stone, covered with ivy. Its lock is rusted and I don't have the key...at least, not that I know of.

As the morning light grows, so do the sounds of traffic and the train tracks, nearby. The birds outside are beginning to chatter and soon our finches will join them. Bebe, my guardian cat, is at the screen door to the patio, watching it all. The moment has passed and the day claims dominance, once again. I can't help feeling a twinge of sadness. I missed it, whatever “it” is, but this will not be the first time. It probably won't be the last, either. Now that the heartburn is settled, I suppose it is time to return to dreams of a different kind, ever the girl on the in-between.