In Cofer's essay she writes about the "long sleep of childhood" and being awoken by the "alarm clock" of Ravi Shankar's music.  These metaphors are used to convey Cofer's sense of the world at the age of fourteen, showing that there is commonly a turning point that transitions one from a child to an adult. When Cofer uses the "long sleep of childhood" metaphor she is showing that until the day that Sister Rosetta came into her life in 1966 she was still just a child.  Sister Rosetta however, woke her out of her sleep and helped to transition her into adulthood.  Its when Sister Rosetta gives Cofer the album of Ravi Shankar's music that her "alarm clock" finally goes off and she feels like a real person of the world.  Cofer says "but to me the high, lingering notes were an alarm clock bringing me out of myself, out of ignorance and into the realm of the senses."  This shows her sense of the world at this point in time and how music gave her a new view of life.  Cofer sets up the appearance of Sister Rosetta by saying that she is "anything but the docile bride of Jesus" and then continues to prove that point with her description that is nothing like the stereotypical picture of a nun.   In paragraph two Cofer describes Sister Rosetta by saying "If a nun's coif had not framed those features- the slightly bulbous nose, plump red-veined cheeks, and close-set eyes- this could have been the face of a heavy drinker or a laborer."  This description portrays anyone but a nun.  The typical image that comes to anyone's mind of nun is far from the same image that comes to mind when thinking of a heavy drinker or a laborer.  These comparisons that Cofer uses very well contradict the picture of a nun or the "docile bride of Jesus."