Wake up call
There are some delightful ways to wake up, and some distressing ones.
Our neighbours upstairs, before we had the urban yoof posse (even I’m getting bored with them now), were quite nice. They said hello in the corridor and didn’t run around with concrete boots on. They did, however, occasionally like to indulge in very noisy sex, in the middle of the night, for hours. The first time it happened, I didn’t know what to think. All I could hear were screams and wails, and the legs of the bed scraping against my ceiling. I thought someone had been kidnapped, tied to a piece of furniture and was being repeatedly beaten, but then I woke up properly and realised what was going on. So I bought some earplugs and all was well.
Now I am woken only by my alarm clock, but in December, I’m off to India (yay) for work (boo!) for a couple of weeks. I’ve been to India once, and my boyfriend at the time and I travelled down to Kerala, after he had recovered from the dysentry enough to take the train. We hired a converted rice boat for a couple of days, and cruised the backwaters in a state of romantic bliss. As the sun went down, we ate pineapple curry and Indian rice pudding, and listened to drum beats drifting through the twilight. When we drifted into consciousness, it was dawn, and in the night, while we slept, the boat had been turned around so that we could sit out on the deck and watch the sunrise. As it did so, fishermen poled their boats through the mist, and we could hear singing from the shrouded riverbanks. It was ethereally beautiful. I wish I could wake up like that every day.
I also used to like hearing the early call to prayer when I worked in the Middle East. Almost without exception it made me feel at peace, and excited about the day ahead. Almost. There was this one old bastard at the mosque behind my hotel in Damascus, who sounded as if he was sitting on my window-sill with a loudspeaker. He used to commence his adhan with loud spitting and hawking through the mike, and then start off with an unholy caterwauling that made me leap out of bed in terror, and hide in the shower. God only knows how he became a muezzin. I did get quite fond of him after a few months, but I never managed to doze through it. Maybe that was the point.
Our neighbours upstairs, before we had the urban yoof posse (even I’m getting bored with them now), were quite nice. They said hello in the corridor and didn’t run around with concrete boots on. They did, however, occasionally like to indulge in very noisy sex, in the middle of the night, for hours. The first time it happened, I didn’t know what to think. All I could hear were screams and wails, and the legs of the bed scraping against my ceiling. I thought someone had been kidnapped, tied to a piece of furniture and was being repeatedly beaten, but then I woke up properly and realised what was going on. So I bought some earplugs and all was well.
Now I am woken only by my alarm clock, but in December, I’m off to India (yay) for work (boo!) for a couple of weeks. I’ve been to India once, and my boyfriend at the time and I travelled down to Kerala, after he had recovered from the dysentry enough to take the train. We hired a converted rice boat for a couple of days, and cruised the backwaters in a state of romantic bliss. As the sun went down, we ate pineapple curry and Indian rice pudding, and listened to drum beats drifting through the twilight. When we drifted into consciousness, it was dawn, and in the night, while we slept, the boat had been turned around so that we could sit out on the deck and watch the sunrise. As it did so, fishermen poled their boats through the mist, and we could hear singing from the shrouded riverbanks. It was ethereally beautiful. I wish I could wake up like that every day.
I also used to like hearing the early call to prayer when I worked in the Middle East. Almost without exception it made me feel at peace, and excited about the day ahead. Almost. There was this one old bastard at the mosque behind my hotel in Damascus, who sounded as if he was sitting on my window-sill with a loudspeaker. He used to commence his adhan with loud spitting and hawking through the mike, and then start off with an unholy caterwauling that made me leap out of bed in terror, and hide in the shower. God only knows how he became a muezzin. I did get quite fond of him after a few months, but I never managed to doze through it. Maybe that was the point.
posted by Rachie at 2:15 PM
