On Friday evening I put on a fresh pillowcase and turned off the Saturday alarm

On Friday evening, the first thing I did when I got home was take the pillowcase down from the drying rack. I had washed it on Wednesday, and it had been hanging on the drying rack, just as it was, for two days. When I pulled off the old pillowcase, one side of the pillow was pressed flat. Putting on the freshly washed one took less than a minute, and when I ran my palm over it once, it felt cool and dry.

I sat on the edge of the bed and opened the alarm list on my phone. Below the weekday alarms there was one more, labeled "Sat 07:30 workout." I had set it up a month ago, fully meaning it. Three times in a row I had only switched it off the moment it rang, and last week I hadn't even noticed it going off. Each time I turned it off, it felt as if one more small stone had been set on my chest. Leaving it there, knowing I wouldn't keep it this weekend either, began to feel stranger than turning it off, and my finger stopped above the switch.

A morning that comes without being set

Before switching off the alarm, I opened still().

They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness.

Lamentations 3:23 (WEB)

I looked for a long time at the "They" in front of "new." At least it was not something that becomes new because I kept my alarm. And what came after was not my faithfulness but "your faithfulness," the Lord's. I had always thought that when morning comes, I have to start over, but in this sentence the morning isn't written as a task I have to achieve. Turning off the alarm felt closer to tidying up than to giving up.

I turned off the alarm, and the list got one line shorter. As I switched off the light and lay down, I laid my cheek against the freshly washed pillowcase. There was the faintest smell of detergent, and the streetlight coming through a gap in the curtains hung thin across the ceiling. Tomorrow is a morning when I can get up whenever my eyes open. A motorbike passed outside once, and then the room was quiet.

Today's breath — Turn off one thing that was left on today, and as you breathe out, let your shoulders rest on the pillow.