Carpe Noctem

Midnight shift. That's what my husband is doing this week in the Navy. He goes to work around 7 p.m., comes home around 8 a.m., then spends most of his time at home sleeping. Wouldn't you? I would. I did a brief stint in the Army after I graduated from high school, and I got a taste of the midnight training shift myself. It blows monkey chunks. (Obviously, things didn't work out for me in the Army.) But yesterday, a slight reprieve. He woke up early and I felt human, so we went out to eat before his shift.

I don't mind the long hours alone too terribly. I can usually find something to keep me amused. I can stream Netflix movies to my Xbox, read a book, or study Japanese. Oh, yeah. I recently purchased the Rosetta Stone Japanese language program, and it rocks! It's a great thing to do when I'm stuck on the couch. And, of course, if all else fails, there's always housework. (Today, for instance, I need to buy groceries--before we run out of food and starve.)

It's going to bed at night that's the hard part. Not that the bed is empty, but the house is. Empty and quiet. When I go to bed, I have to check the locks and turn out the lights. Walking through the empty house when it's dark outside can be a little creepy. (Welcome to the Navy.) Of course, the real bogeymen are all in my head.

Last night, when I laid down to go to sleep, a strange and wonderful thing: I found a sweet scent on my pillow, as if an angel had touched it. The smell was delicious. I don't think I have anything like it in the house. I buried my nose in it and drifted off to sleep. This morning, when I woke up, I couldn't find it again. I had smothered it in the night with my stink. (With my heightened sense of smell, sniffing around anything these days can be dangerous--for my stomach, anyway.)

Oh, sweet scent, where did you go? Will you return again someday?