Getting Rattled

A sudden gust of wind rattled the window so hard I woke up thinking it was Monday.

One glance at the clock was alarm enough. It was after nine o’clock and I teach at nine. Oh no! Yelping in denial repeatedly, I bolted upright and swung my legs out of the bed. This cannot be happening.

It wasn’t.

Just an interminable few seconds later, I realized it was Sunday.

Oh, sweet relief. The day was mine again.

What happens when we get another chance? For me, I crashed back on my pillows for a moment and caught up with my new reality. The sirens in my head quieted and I celebrated that things were actually much better than they seemed just a moment ago.

For a while now, I have been promising myself to write shorter entries. At least some shorter entries. And now that you also know I’m writing this on a Sunday (of course by the time you read this, it will likely be during the week because there’s the whole proofreading et al. to follow), you will understand the brevity even more.

How do you respond when something so noisy comes into your life that you suddenly “think it’s Monday?” Rattling windows can be pretty disorienting after all. They are so convincing and distracting at the same time. “Pay attention to me!”  they shout, “I am the only thing in your universe worth acknowledging.”

And yet, when we take a breath, and we let our mind relax, we find out it’s just not true.

Sometimes a gust of wind is just a gust of wind.