MAZ '15 Post 4: Wake Up Call

From my notes of Monday, March 16, Day 3:

          I woke up before my alarm this morning – actually it was hours before my iPhone would chirp me awake or any biological imperative would make itself known to me. Perhaps it was the cricket that tried a kamikaze-suicide by running full-tilt into my head that was just barely sticking out of the top of my sleeping bag or maybe it was the anticipation of waking up nearly thirty teammates for our first full day of work.

Vah Ki Before Sunrise

At any rate, I was fully out and patrolling our camp well over an hour before sunrise. I was followed closely by three of the girls asking if they could work out and then Jacob asking if he could run laps. Anna, Sinclair, and Emily worked out and Jacob ran while I quietly moved the dogs out in a widening perimeter; my path was basically designed to keep watch on the athletes. Jacob’s self-defined route took him in and out of the early-morning gloom. I was thankful that I was able to pick up his return earlier with each lap as the sun inched its way over distant mountains.

          I walked through the dorm that we established under the huge meeting arbor by pulling together benches and setting them face-to-face to make what could be cozy bunks. They keep us off the concrete floor and away from the creepy-crawlies. Early on in my MAZ carrier when my daughter Lauren would be sleeping next to me as a young elementary school child, we would simply spread out a tarp and lay our air mattress on it until one morning I was woken up by one of the reservation dogs licking my face. We joined the kids on the bench-bunks that night. Nowadays I use a cot as do several of the other adult advisors. Age and experience have helped define our comfort levels here in the Sonoran Desert.

          Walking from the pink section (girls) to the blue section (boys) and seeing them all wrapped up like cocoons I didn’t feel like waking them up, a rare occurrence for me. I felt more predisposed to let them sleep, even if only for fifteen minutes longer.

Wake up!

My humane wake-up calls were met with heavy resistance from a couple of bunks. I imagine that waking up with my face inches from theirs while asking if I was “getting through” to them paid dividends later in the week. It couldn’t have been pleasant waking from their dreams to see this face. Brad Pitt or Jennifer Lawrence? Sure. My face? Not so much.

In His Grip,

jerry