An
alarm goes off. One of my kids is ambitious this morning.
There’s
construction on the road somewhere nearby; amid the sounds of early-morning commuters
I can hear trucks, or it is a motorcycle? It’s out of place; we usually don’t
hear engines rumbling in the fall, and certainly not early in the morning. Joyriders save their extreme riding for the middle of hot summer
nights. I know this, as I have woken up enough times listening to speed demons
race up and down the road behind our house, praying that the sound continues
and fades away instead of stopping short.
The
alarm goes off again. The snooze button – what’s
the point? I'd rather just set my alarm ten minutes later. If I get awake I'm up. I guess people learn this. Or not. If people didn’t use the snooze it wouldn’t exist.
The
cat chirps behind me, walks toward my chair and wraps himself around my legs.
His contented/devious purr sounds like a little motor. I look at him and he
stops, gives a high-pitched “Meow?” and then walks over to a houseplant. A male cat should have a more masculine voice. He puts
his paws up on the pot, sniffs at the leaves. “Get down,” I warn him. This is our morning dance, my husband says. The cat glares at me and walks away.
Another
alarm buzzes in a different part of the house and then clicks off. It elicits no other movement from its owner. I’m surrounded by snoozers.
The
sounds of the traffic on the road rise until they blend into one road noise
that my ears have been conditioned to ignore after fifteen years of living
here. If I lived here for thirty more years and one day needed hearing aids I’d
have to get used to the sound all over again. The thought of that is daunting;
I’d probably want to move away. No wonder my grandmother hated wearing her new hearing
aids at 92.
By
6:15 one of my children is sitting next to me at the table eating breakfast. A few
surly comments tossed here and there remind me that tender minds take time to
become fully awake. We say little more to each other. I listen to the sounds of
a bowl of cereal being consumed, a mediocre representative of the most
important meal of the day. I sip my coffee. This child escapes upstairs to get
ready for school.
A
few minutes later, I still haven’t heard a sound from the other child. I walk
over to the stairs and call up the stairs, “Are you awake?” “YEAH,” comes the
delayed response. I have woken up this second child. Waking up sleeping people
has become my least favorite thing to do since becoming a parent.
The
time before school melts away and the regular sounds of preparation have filled in the quiet
that I have stolen for myself for years. I used to wish the quiet lasted longer; I don’t
have enough time in it to accomplish much. But grasping at time is foolish, and
I never made it count for much more than what was already happening anyway.
The
noises swirl around me. I am content to hear them create this new day.
*******
This post inspired by:
Mama Kat's Writing Workshop
I *love* sound-inspired posts. Yours is a great one!
ReplyDeleteThanks Paula! It's so easy to write about what we hear, and I'm always amazed at what I actually hear once I stop to listen.
DeleteI loved reading about your early morning. So much actually that I set my iPhone timer right away and just sat on the sofa for 5 minutes listening...
ReplyDeleteIt's calming, isn't it? Just listening...
DeleteThank you for reading!
Morning routines on school days....or the absence of....is the best life improvement in the empty nest years.
ReplyDeleteAhhh... it's something to look forward to instead of crying that my children are gone every day. ;)
DeleteA fantastic description! Love it.
ReplyDeleteThank you!
DeleteLovely.
ReplyDeleteThanks Lisa!
DeleteGreat descriptions! Sounds like my house...minus the cat...visiting from Mama Kat!
ReplyDeleteOh that cat. He adds another layer of nonsense to everything.
DeleteI'm a snoozer. Your morning is SO familiar!
ReplyDeleteI used to be a snoozer, setting my clock carefully ten or twenty minutes ahead so I could trick myself into thinking I was sleeping in.
DeleteThat trait got passed right down to my kids.
Yes! The life of the waker-upper...the spoiler of sweet slumber! I tried the snooze thing, but decided being woken out of a sound sleep more than once was just cruel.
ReplyDeleteExactly my point about the snooze button. :)
Delete