Sometimes we get tired. We get so tired that it is hard to find rest. This unfulfilled longing is what I regard as restless. Although you want the rest, and need the rest, the rest is hard to come by. Right now, I am restless.
After weeks of other people’s priorities – without complaint—I needed to catch up on hours lost. I wanted to curl up in a blanket, any blanket, close my eyes, and drift off into a satisfying slumber but instead I was awakened by the sound of a sharp (not flat) chirp, consistently chiming in thirty-second intervals.
Really?
It was, or rather, it is the smoke detector in my bedroom.
Really?
Oh, how I find it perplexing that at a time when my body needs sleep the most, I cannot receive it. God’s promise of sweet sleep was interrupted at about 4 AM.
Because it was Sunday, I let it chime away while I went about my morning routine and somewhere around 1 PM the chiming ceased, only to return on Monday morning. Ugh!
Now before you think I’m a real dunce, allowing this prolonged disruption to malign my already restless state of being, I will inform you that I did try to turn the sucker off. First, like most enlightened people these days, I googled the solution. Wrong! That was second. First, I hit the detector with a broom. Literally. Over and over, I swung my broom handle at this round irritant–from at least ten feet below. Obviously, that did not help because I still hear the dreaded noise playing in the background even as I type this text.
Before the third thing I decided to try, I drank some java, ate some grub, and gathered enough energy to drag my small ladder into my bedroom. Someone only a few inches taller than me tried to unscrew the device. Well, let me assure you before you make the same mistake that that is not a screw, only a hole for the red or green light to shine through.
Stop! I said. I think you are poking in the wrong spot.
Try twisting it off, I said.
Unfortunately, this person’s fingers could not reach that far.
Perhaps, my ceiling is taller than ten feet.
Maybe we are hobbits.
Definitely, I need a taller ladder.
Our trusty handymen have ladders, but they are on a vacation. So, I sit in any room besides my bedroom. Preferably, the one on the opposite end of the house and I still hear it–chirping, chiming, and reminding me that rest is really not promised, rest is a choice that we must make a priority. Forget that nonsense about sleeping when you’re dead. If you don’t get a good night’s sleep, you will be dead, the living dead.
Right now, I’m a zombie. And I cannot rest until I find someone with a ladder to take this smoke detector down and replace the batteries. So please, don’t be a fool like me, get your rest when you know you should. Because there may come a time when as much as you desire rest, you won’t get any.
Freely writing, randomly, 10/17/21,
Leah
p.s. Update on Tuesday, October 18, 2021: The fire department used to come and help people like me with situations like this. However, the county has suspended that service. Why? Because of Covid. Yes. Here is another reason to hate Covid-19.
Writerly Wisdom:
Getting the stuff out of your head and onto a page will help writers get their juices flowing, and ready to do some real writing. Try free-writing whenever you feel stressed.