The Alarm

Children putting the slow-down on an adults life, providing enrichment and enlightenment.

  I was awakened by “the alarm.” It wasn’t an alarm that anyone else could hear but it woke me with equal effect to anything physical. Its sound was a mix between an old fashion wind up alarm clock and one of those old obsolete rotary telephones. I opened my eyes with a jerk and looked around the room in a vague panic: everything was dim and grey with a buzzy visual feel to it; an effect I sometimes experience upon awakening. This buzzy vision falls in the category of things never mentioned to others so you think that you’re the only one who experiences it. I didn’t even know the alarm clock phenomenon was common among others until quite late in life.

  The furniture in the room was beginning to take shape in the early dawn light; late winter . The weather had been nothing but iron grey skies and cold rain since January; average temp: 38F. I don’t care what anyone says about wind chill or 40 below or whatever; 38 degrees and raining is downright cold. I’ve been elk hunting in this crap. The rain will chill you to the bone, the cold gets in your joints and aches like all get-out. I’ve experienced just about every weather condition available on the planet and 38 with rain may not be the most dangerous to life but it’s certainly a comfort killer. I hadn’t looked out the window yet but I knew it was going to be something similar.

  I lay there trying to fool myself into thinking that I could go back to sleep but it was too late. My compulsive thoughts had kicked in and were spooling up like a jet aircraft engine. I ran an old song lyric through my head, wryly repeating it:

                Lonely is the night,

                When you find yourself alone,

                The demons come alive,

                And your mind is not your own,

                       -Billy Squire

  Man, that guy knew my head.  An insomniac poet putting words to a condition I could not name. Well, it wasn’t night anymore. I might as well drag my butt out of bed before my thoughts drive me nuts. It always gets better when I move; I don’t idle well.

  I bumped around the dim room stubbing things as I went while I searched for yesterday’s jeans. I pulled them on and headed for the kitchen, thinking that my wife was probably relieved to hear the bedroom door click closed. I don’t think anyone could’ve slept through that racket. As I headed into the kitchen I saw a wonderful vision:

  My five year old was standing like a little ghost over the heat register near the sliding glass door wrapped in a pink blanket printed with little Tiggers and Poohs. She stood there looking out, in a trance of awe and wonderment, as some of the largest snowflakes I’ve ever seen were falling with high frequency in the back yard. Each flake was easily an inch in diameter the snow was accumulating but probably wouldn’t last long on the ground. In a wave of revelation it occurred to me that I just caught God doing something very special for a little girl. I stepped up behind her; she didn’t mind the intrusion as we stood for a moment watching the snow, “Those snowflakes, Daddy, they’re BIG.”

“Yeah”, I said, “they’re huge”.

  I got showered and dressed. It was a little easier to get the truck cleaned off and in to work as I was reminded once again why married men live longer. Seeing the magic of a common weather phenomenon through the eyes of a child certainly has the effect of one feeling like they've added a few years to the end of their life.