What Wakes You Up?

Sue, my former neighbor, remarked on how quiet it is at night in her new house, tucked away on a residential street. My houe and her old one are on a thoroughfare, with railroad tracks a little over two blocks away. Apparentlyshe heard the street cleaning machine that comes by at 3:30 (couldn't prove it by me--I've never heard it) and the driver who empties the dumpster at the school across the street (I used to hear that but go right back to sleep), the trains as they blew their warning whistles and the banging and clanging of the railroad yard a bit to the south of us. I never hear any of it, but then I'm a child of the city and have always lived with city noise except for one four-year stretch in a small Missouri town (I don't remember much about the quiet). Where I grew up there was a main street a half block away, and we heard sirens at all hours of the day and night. My friend Barbara's family had a second-floor apartment on a level with the elevated railroad tracks just four doors away, and I learned to sleep soundly there. (I'm also much more security conscious than Sue, which I attribute to a Chicago childhood vs. hers in a small Canadian city with a policeman for a father).
Sue's being awakened by noises made me think of my best friend in grade school and high school--Eleanor Lee. She lived in a huge old house with her mother and sister, and some stalker discovered there were three women alone. One night Elizabeth, Eleanor Lee's sister, awoke in their second-floor bedroom to see a man head and shoulders inside the window next to her bed. She screamed, he ran away, the police were called, and a long night ensued for everyone. It was early daylight before the girls could go back to bed, and Eleanor Lee sat up in bed and demanded, "Are those damn birds going to sing like this every morning!" She was probably ten.
No, it's not city noises nor birds that wake me. It's my own body. Sometimes I need to use the restroom; other times I have a cramp in my foot or leg. In recent years I've noticed that my hips ache in the morning, so that I toss and turn to find a new position, and sometimes if I lie on my right side,my bad shoulder suddenly complains. When peole ask how late I sleep now that I'm retired, my standard reply is, "As late as my body will let me."
Lately though I've discovered a trick. I get up when the cat starts yowling (or more particularly when the dog indicates he's ready to go out). I feed them both,  use the restroom, and go back to bed. I've been up just enough to work out the aches and cramps, and I can doze peacefully. My mother taught me to always sleep with my bedroom door open, so I can listen to my house. So I hear those comforting sounds of the furnace, the refrigerator, etc., and I'm alert to out-of-place noises like when one of the kids let the commode in my office bedroom run all night.  But city noises? I find it comforting to think that while I sleep the world is still working, there are people out there making life better. I wouldn't do well living in the country where dark is dark and quiet is really quiet.