Sleepish

 

September 7, 2020

 

Greetings from the drowsy,

 Somewhere in sleep the mind and body repairs and restores.  There are physical and psychological housecleaning going on, taking our various needs and tending to them, in the safe restorative sanctuary of slumber, a pause in life to gather strength.

 Well, not always.

 There are some nights when I go to bed with a Jackson Pollock canvas and wake with a clean palette.  And there are nights when the pandemonium in my head is simply layered with some new chaos I hadn’t considered during the day.  On those nights, I am not done being awake.

 I am ‘sleepish’, a word I invented a few hours ago.  It means that I am a little embarrassed to admit that I am not always good at sleep.  I don’t really think there is any shame in that, although sometimes it still feels like a failure, since so many people are naturally good at it.

 The real reason I am timid about mentioning my sleep challenges is that if you have trouble sleeping there is no shortage of advice on how to solve that.  If you say out loud “I had trouble sleeping.” the world will pour the solutions into you in that gentle sort of firehose-in-the-mouth kind of way.  There are entire industries and professional organizations dedicated to this.  The National Sleep Foundation, American Academy of Sleep Medicine, American Sleep Association, and with them hoards of crazy people who know the answers.  And they are crazy because they are insomniacs.

 Advice about sleep is as pervasive as cold remedies.  Take melatonin or exercise more or less, don’t eat so late, have a snack before sleep. There are whole books on managing your sleep environment; choose the mattress, control light, temperature, limit screens, reading or not reading, no pets in the room, get a therapy dog to sleep with you.

 Of course there is some commentary, usually influenced by the Farmer’s Almanac or yesterday’s horoscope or Aunt Iola’s whiskey and sorghum recipe, that is just annoying.  “Well, there’s your problem right there.  You need to put bananas under your pillow and sleep in jute lined pajamas.”  Someone suggested I drink less coffee, and so I tried not talking to that person anymore.  It helped enormously.

 I fall asleep quickly, which I am a little too proud of.  I’m always surprised when I wake, still feeling proud perhaps, and see I have failed, the clock next to me showing me my score.

 If I wake, I try the popular strategies. Deep breathing.  Count backwards from 100, which I have mastered and moved on to 500 and 1000.  Sometimes I’ll imagine being in an empty room, sweeping dust into a neat pile, and then into a scoop, and emptying it into a box.  Lately I have been building things out of wood.  Sometimes I get entire castles constructed before I stop that.

  I will admit, sleepishly, that I almost never remember dreams.  I’m sure that means something but if you know, please don’t tell me.  It will just keep me awake.

 My least favorite activity in this realm is ‘Making Deals’.   I wake to demons or unfinished things or remembering that time I mispronounced ‘pedagogy’ and see that it is still hours from dawn.  And so, the negotiation.  I’ll stay in bed for thirty minutes and see if I can sleep and then I’ll…get up…read…take a pill…turn the pillow over.  Ok, ten more minutes, and then….

 Before you worry, and at least a couple of you might, I am not an insomniac.  I am healthy, I sleep enough, and sometimes that means a refreshing nap at six a.m.  Sleep does not always come in the way the industry prescribes.  It is not always a problem to be solved. 

 I have learned that sometimes my sleepishness gets in the way.  I fuss about not getting enough sleep and that makes things worse than they are.  Some experts created the term ‘sleep satisfaction’ which suggests that you not get too twisted up about the score card; sometimes six hours is enough, and if you feel good, then relax.

 One of my favorite experiences in life is waking to the sound of rain, no matter what time.  It is comforting, even when thunder accents the sighing of the water on leaves.  I feel as though nature is watching me sleeping.  If I was offered that at two a.m., I’d take it.

 Earlier this week I woke in the middle of the night, for what I thought was morning.  I was wide awake for no obvious reason.  Then I heard voices, which made me curious enough to put my shorts on and go outside.  My thought was to tell whoever was out there to quiet the hell down.  The truth is I was angry at being awake, and they just happened to be in my path.

 Instead I found myself under a full moon, which was celebrating over the open field next to my house.  The people owning the voices went away and I was left with this simple moment.  What occurred to me under that beautiful sky was this; the moon was fulfilled, was at its utmost in that moment, but only because the sun, still hidden, was pouring light on its beloved creatures in the dark.  Some slept, some were awake to enjoy the gift.

 D. H. Lawrence wrote: “And if tonight my soul may find her peace in sleep, and sink in good oblivion, and in the morning wake like a new-opened flower, then I have been dipped again in God, and new-created.”  He did not add: “Get eight hours.”

 The purpose of sleep is to refresh, to give our body and mind the rest necessary to be our best selves in the morning.  It is an intimate and personal experience, and perhaps not always subject to averages and whatever science and Aunt Iola suggest.  How we find our balance between waking and sleeping will be as different as our sense of humor, or what makes us cry, or how we love.  It is another expression of us.

 Hope this finds you new-created,

 David