Dreams of homes never lived in, lovers never had,

And of lives lived forever, but not fire-retardant-clad.

Dreams of spires and splinters, friends always known,

Melted in palms once morning’s fires blown.

Dreams so real you’d mourn, if memory would allow,

But instead, they linger, patiently, smiling through a furrowed brow.

              I Woke Up Today

I Woke Up Today, and rolled over to grab my phone, to pull up BBC News, to wash away the dregs of a dream which felt more real than the world I’d stuttered into.

A habit so strange, and yet comprehensible. Give me consensus, give me norms, give me the same stories that I fell asleep to, of hostages freed and paedophiles murdered and speculation of England’s 2026 World Cup Squad.

Strange. A dream that feels so real; of clearer sense than the world I’ve stepped back to. But a dream that is gone, washed clear by the waking tide, like a wave across the sands or a Zamboni across the ice.

And replaced by a world that seems so unreal.

              I Woke Up Today

I Woke Up Today, and saw a WhatsApp from my Mum. It read, “Morning lovely Sammy x”. Ahhh… Indeed. Now this is of a world I love.

My Mum. My Mum, who thinks of her boys many moments of each day, and sends a message of such love.

“Morning [a welcome, a greeting, an announcement: a wave] lovely [warmth, affection, appreciation, acceptance, an affirmation of positive sentiment: love] Sammy [that’s me, my Mum and Dad’s son, my Brother’s brother, my Friend’s friend, and this open field of coagulated experience]”.

Morning lovely Sammy x

              I Woke Up Today

I Woke Up Today, and saw a WhatsApp from Millie, my new housemate and old friend. It read, “Coffee at 09:30?”.

A cold shower prickled my skin, and my Oral-B iO2 swept my teeth. Adorning my favourite shirt – hand-stitched, from Thailand, boxy, patterned like the contours of a Roman burial ground – and my favourite shoes – fakes, from Vietnam, imitating the Zion Dunks like the T-1000 – I sat down to work.

Logged onto Teams, updated my to-do-today spreadsheet, and prepped for my morning meetings.

Astride my friends, to an independent round the corner, leaving with a steaming brew. Rich, chocolatey, nutty, smoky, and sweet. A perfect Americano.

I spent the day running through tasks, meeting through meetings, with all difficulties melting like butter as if they were not even there.

              I Woke Up Today

I Woke Up Today, with memories of climbing the night before. Bouldering, more precisely, with two beautiful friends. Picking out routes that sat at our capacities’ threshold, and throwing down gauntlets, one by one.

Frustration snapped, and fingers slipped, and skin shorn raw. And then an admonition, to myself, to just chill out. Just relax, man, and let your body do the work.

I stopped thinking about climbing, and I just climbed. My body moved across the wall, up and along, and I seemed to move with it. Annoying advice to then pass onto my friends, but honest advice, nonetheless.

              I Woke Up Today

I Woke Up Today when watching, whilst eating my lunch, a scene from The Peaky Blinders, Season 2.

Of Tommy loving Grace and stating not a day has passed in the last three years when she hasn’t walked his mind.

And then me, momentarily not feeling so alone in this experience, and knowing it is okay.

Better still it is, and that is okay.

Of tasting avocado and feta, and tomatoes and olive oil, whilst feeling like The Hollies’ The Air That I Breathe for someone I haven’t seen in a year.

And yet there she is, ever here, just as closely as the umami on my tongue and the cotton on my chest.

              I Woke Up Today

I Woke Up Today when using our company’s internal recognition platform, to express sincere gratitude for the colleagues with whom I spent last week walking a combined 1,200km across Ibiza.

I felt their brilliance, their humanness and their humanity, their energy and their smiles, and the lingering sweetness of solidarity and companionship, and vivacity and inspiration.

              I Woke Up Today

I Woke Up Today, just an hour ago, in fact, after watching Tron: Ares in 3D. Brain-melting colour and lines, and semi-skimmed philosophy and half-baked AI.

When Jeff Bridges said something like “I named it the permanence code, but man, I’ve realised since, it’s the impermanence code”, I woke up.

And I smiled to myself.

And I felt awakeness wash over my Being, and I smiled to myself again.

              I Woke Up Today

I Woke Up Today when walking back from the cinema, wearing a cool tan-suede jacket I took from my more-stylish-than-me brother, and some baggy jeans, and a white Dave Matthews Band x Ben & Jerry’s t-shirt that I bought in a vintage store in Chicago when I was there for the day, and a backwards green cap that says Duchess Land Conservancy on it that I bought in a vintage store in Manhattan when I was there for the day, and my Vietnamese shoes, and my favourite ever headphones.

Oh, my favourite ever headphones. Perhaps my favourite ever material thing.

Sennheiser Momentum 2s, bought with my savings when I was 15 for £220, which are succumbing to the inevitablility of entropy, and are soon to be replaced by a gift to myself: the Momentum 4s.

Progress is inevitable.

The frosty-sweet clarity of Daniel Caesar, massaging my frontal cortex, as he squints across a cuboid-bubble of a beat, on Omar Apollo’s Invincible. Like vitamin C through a cold IV, dripping Monster Ultra and 2CB.

              I Woke Up Today

I Woke Up Today when I got back to the house, stepped onto the roof outside my bedroom, and meditated with Sam Harris. It has been an age. And I was awake, and alive, and present, and centred. The only thoughts floating through Being, being the words of this article, which after meditation, and after clambering back through the window, have transposed themselves onto page.

Such is the nature of the life I’ve been gifted, that my life is magic and always is. Kind colleagues and good friends, and holidays and new flavours and old music. Oh so much of all of this, such that I could not wish for more.

But I have so often failed to see this, and when I have, I have often felt the magic to be more like illusory illusion.

I Woke Up Today for the first time in a very, very long time. Or so it feels. Clouds obscuring the light of awareness for such a long time.

Clouds of anxiety. So much anxiety. Borne from trauma – I don’t really think there to be another word for it – accumulated whilst renting a room earlier this year from a bad, bad man.

Maybe I’ll write about that sometime.

And clouds, too, of frustration and anger. Oh, how they gathered. Of things that occupy that uncanny valley, that disputed border, between acceptance and courage where wisdom offers a hung jury.

Maybe I’ll write about that sometime, too.

              But I Woke Up Today

I Woke Up Today, and again, and again, and again, and again. I awoke to the feeling of returning to a home I have not been for a very long while.

Ahh, yes. Presence. Stillness. Grounding. I remember you.

Awareness and awakening. Itself my dearest love and my sweetest dreamscape. I remember you.

“The end of all our exploring / Will be to arrive where we started / And know the place for the first time.”

I have been here before. And yet, I arrive here brand new.

              I Woke Up Today

I Woke Up Today, and I really hope I wake up tomorrow. I really, really do.

But, perhaps, I will not. And perhaps I never will again.

Metaphorically, literally, figuratively. Who knows.

But tonight I will drift off with a prayer in my mind.

A prayer to take me to the beautiful dreams I knew last night, and the beautiful friends and homes and lives lived within them.

And a prayer too, that I will be able, again, to say those magic words.

I Woke Up Today.