When your bed situation is less than level, your body, however tired, will wake you about it in the middle of the night. Like when a baby cries, you may not know immediately why you cannot continue your slumber. You may try to sleep again after having some water, or a pee, maybe both. Sleep will not return however. The baby continues to cry until you realize you’re tossing and turning on an incline. This realization actually feels more like a decline.

i have experienced more than a few sunrises this way. You may wonder why, as i sleep in my car, i couldn’t, simply, move it? One hundred per cent of the time i am already on the most even ground known to me. There’s the option of driving until i find somewhere new, of course, but this situation has its own special fatigue. It’s all i can do, while half asleep, to remind myself that the new day will soon be accompanied by a new night: another chance to rest.

This morning i was contemplating just these things under a sky of deep, dreary grey as it was fading to white. The lake beyond my windows moved as if with a tidal current, swift and choppy. Fog obscured the opposite shore, the wind blowing clouds around with seemingly earnest aimlessness. i thought perhaps the shoreline could provide me with a flat stone to level a rear wheel, and focused on this as a solution as i dragged my consciousness into a new day.

It was after nine when the neighbors started their truck. i couldn’t see it, but i heard that rumble with an immediate optimism followed by the crushing wisdom of experience. The likelihood of anyone packing out on a Friday morning was close to none. As if in confirmation of this thought, the truck engine cut off. A small part of me hoped they’d been moving it to hitch their trailer, but as i brushed my teeth i focused on what i might require of my leveling rock. Rocks, probably. i considered the new spade my pops had got me, which i could use to adjust the ground if i needed to. From my spot just inland, i couldn’t see much by way of flat, big stones on the shore. Perhaps i would construct a small leveling block of rocks and dirt. i could mark the spot with the spade before i moved the car, assuring the balance would be right, or at least closer than it was last night. The truck engine turned over again. i poked my head out to watch my neighbors depart, trailer and all.

i took over that space without a second of hesitation, and within three minutes of this fortunate vacancy, my bed was level again. i set to making breakfast at my new site with a deep and grand contentment. Tonight, i knew, i would sleep well.