Day 82
awake
I decided to write on the word awake because this morning it is more than just a simple state of being, but a process. As I was getting out of bed, I moved through the space between asleep and awake sluggishly, with a mild irritability. I usually love mornings and waking; it is absolutely my time. I’m physically tired though, and feeling the pressure of the day before I even open my eyes I think, so I’m not very encouraged to get up.
To be fair, to be awake is not just to not be asleep. You can not be asleep and still be so checked out of the present moment that you might as well be sleeping. The word woke has become such a popular adjective because young people are recognizing that while their parents and grandparents are awake, they are not aware. But saying “she’s so aware of injustice” doesn’t have the punch of “she’s so woke!”
The problem I have with the word woke however, is that it sounds like a static state. It is past-tense, technically, and when our brains take it in, we hear that something has happened. I’m sure this is exactly why it is used this way; to describe a person that has gone through an event and is now present and aware.
I am awake, not woke, because my awareness is always deepening and becoming. I am awake, not because I now know something I did not know a year ago (i.e. that racism is rampant and the justice system is corrupt,) but because I am feeling the injustice and the pain in a way that I was not a year ago. I am unable to hit the snooze button, or sleep walk through the day, doing only what I have to. To be woke, would imply that I have arrived in some place where I am operating in a permanent state of awareness of true reality. The problem is, I do not ever want to arrive there. I would rather be awake: becoming, taking in, in each moment, whatever is happening, whoever is hurting, whoever is giving life and joy and hope.
I do not want to arrive; because there will always be more awakening to happen, and so I want to learn to be expectant.
