sublingua

The heart with a mind of its own.

(Be present.)

The mind with a heart of its own.

(It's past.)

The dream that is your waking life.

(Go there now.)

sleep and no-sleep
2000-12-18

I like to give the angry torch-bearing villagers alternate Tuesdays off. No one can chase monsters all the time, no matter how just they find the cause. It's exhausting.

It's the morning. I am in the morning. I have always found mornings magical, and I have always hated them. I remember sunrises in so many places, but they have never meant as much to me as I had always hoped they might. And having been an insomniac most of my life, I have always dreaded first light because too often I have experienced them with burning eyes, sleepless, knowing that I'm going to have to face a long day exhausted. There has never been a time that I have liked mornings, though I have always enjoyed that time of the day that bridges night and morning. I always knew that the magical shift-change wasn't midnight, as people want to believe (and as I have come to acknowledge as convention)--but rather it occurred sometime long after midnight, and is dependent on the actions of the people who occupy the moment, making it unique amongst the perception of time. Most moments don't require your presence, but that shift does. It can happen without your knowing it, of course, but it can't happen without a certain number of sleepless individuals like me to witness it.

That moment often wakes me. I feel like the man who's lived all his life next to the train tracks and becomes gradually used to the noise of the passing trains as he sleeps--so much so that when he retires to the country, he is awakened every night by silence. I am awakened every night by the silence of the shift from night to morning by having been awake through so many of these shifts.

I often pass the nights reading. I read new novels or re-read things I've already read (which is exceedingly comforting). I've often turned my lamp off after a long night of reading, hoping to sleep a bit before morning, only to be greeted by daylight. I try not to read anything too jarring, too exciting because it might obliterate my chances of sleeping altogether, or which might make me angry because I want to continue reading and fall asleep and break the enjoyment of the reading.

For a while, after I had read that even laying in bed doing nothing is a much better kind of "rest"-- closer to sleep that is-- than doing anything, I tried doing this. Laying there at night with the lights out. Not sleeping. Not reading. Thinking. Thinking. Thinking. Not sleeping. Thinking that I was not sleeping. Not distracted, distanced enough from the sleeping, and the anger at not sleeping. I still do this, lay in bed, thinking. Perhaps I even do it more often than I used to. But now I do it with my eyes open, so to speak. Now I do it knowing that it doesn't really help.

Sometimes it's like waiting in line at the grocery store. What can I do now to kill time? What can I use to occupy myself to keep from feeling as though this time were being wasted? What can I do to keep from getting angry at this time, meant for sleep, but which is being spent sleepless?

I keep my clock face down or under the bed, because I can't bear to look at the time, time which is meant for sleep, but which has gotten away from me.

I remember once a man who I worked with at a job that often began before dawn remarking that he hated the sound of singing birds because they reminded him that it was morning and he hadn't slept. He had lain awake all night waiting for the birds to burst into song. They often do before the dawn, too--or at least before I can detect first light. I remember at times feeling the same frustration verging on anger at dawn-greeting birds.

I know what it's like to spend a day held-up by caffeine, and I know what it's like to spend a day when the caffeine has stopped working. I know what day after day after day without sleep feels like. I know what this feels like after seven or eight days. I know what a nap that leaves you more exhausted than before feels like. I know what that pressure around the temples that isn't a headache but rather the manifestation of no-sleep feels like. I know what it is to count the hours until I can be back in bed, trying for sleep again, failing at sleep again.

retreat or surrender

More lies:
Waking Sleeping Demons II - Sunday, Oct. 30, 2011
Waking Sleeping Demons - Saturday, Oct. 29, 2011
time - Friday, May. 20, 2011
- - Wednesday, Oct. 06, 2010
The Return - Tuesday, Oct. 05, 2010

� sublingua sublingua.diaryland.com.