September 13, 2008
Blogging at 2:30 a.m.
Why would anyone be up at this hour blogging? Not from choice, I assure you, but what do you do when night sweats wake you up at 1 a.m. ?
My mind takes all my worries and scatters them around inside a maze and then chases each wisp in endless circles.
I got up and made camomile tea. Kenya followed me sleepily from bedroom to kitchen to bathroom to den, and is now curled up on one of her many beds scattered around the house. For the last hour I have been drinking the tea that usually puts me back to sleep while reading email.
A 99 year old woman sent Coffehouse for Writers the following quote: "Writing isn't all that hard. You just sit down at your typewriter and open a vein."
Writing used to be like that for me but lately the vein doesn't bleed, just clots and delivers sludge. I wish I could use writing as an escape from life's messes.
A friend who tried to commit suicide last year said that he only did two things well: he loved well and he produced art. Now that his partner was dead he no longer loved and the sadness prevented him from producing anything at all.
I understand his despair.
Yesterday I spent the entire day avoiding life. After another sleepless night I finally fell asleep at 5:30 a.m. and slept in till 8. Then I got up and made tea which I drank in a leisurely fashion while sitting at the computer. After a shower I made myself and Kenya poached eggs and fielded a couple of phone calls. Then we went out and walked five miles in the rain. Afterwards we were both cold, wet and tired so I made a fire and we zoned out. I watched Smilla's Sense of Snow and The Fugitive, kept the fire going, and ate off and on ... leftovers from yesterday's cooking. I phoned a friend, and then went to bed and read till 9ish. Oh, did I mention that I managed two chores? I did a load of laundry and dried it on a rack in front of the fire and I took the compost out.
Since my return I have learned that a friend is seriously ill, I have managed to get into a financial morass with the tax department, the dryer has conked out, and two of the exterior electrical outlets (including the one for the septic pump) have malfunctioned. And I have had a biopsy done that has caused an infection and resulted in these sleepless nights. I have been home for a mere 11 days. Life was a whole lot simpler when I was a nomad.
Tomorrow I am going to visit a handyman I know to get advice about winterizing the porch, and at noon, the electrician is coming. I intend to spend the rest of the day walking Kenya ... in the rain likely. I hope nothing else engulfs me or breaks down today.
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6 comments:
Blogging at 2:30am - posted at 7:52am...looks like the tea didn't work...
I acknowledge that I am lucky that when things are bad for me...even though I do not sleep well...I at least do sleep fitfully...waking often, having night terrors...but I stay in bed!
I think it must be much worse to be up wandering around a dark and quiet house - alone with your worries.
Remember - I offered - I can lend you a child!
I am looking forward to coming for a visit on Sun...maybe we can offset each others worries...or at least take a day off from them!
Thinking about you!
I left a message first thing this morning but I guess it is somewhere in cyberspace....!
You are not alone and it sounds like
things are piling up on you but this (these!) too shall pass and everything will work out in the end.
And if they don't?
It's not the end.
Tammy and Barbara ...
Thanks for your concern and cheeriness ... I appreciate it.
Barb, do I ever know the feeling-- have had a lifetime of depression; you once gave me a little pot of shamrock on St Patrick's Day, because you said I was 'the only morose Irish person' you knew. Morose? Maybe, but I didn't choose to be--- I don't think I had a full night's sleep for the three years I spent in Canada. That awful school. Those awful kids. That awful department. Those awful awful interpersonal relationships that arose out of the attempt to fend off the sense of isolation..... and all compounded by the WINTERS! I just couldn't cut it in Canada; if I hadn't left when I did... Not that things are much better. But at least it's WARM here.
Hibrasil:
I remember your going to the Chinese embassy wearing a quilted winter jacket and your slacks tucked into boots and saying that the official you met looked like your twin!
Winters here just need the right clothing and they are quite beautiful ... well out here in the country they are.
I usually go around feeling like Little Miss Sunshine ... happy to be alive and living my life ... so this is an aberration for me.
I had forgotten the shamrock. I am glad I gave it to you. Did it help dispel the isolation for a little while?
YEAH! I remember when I BELIEVED in China! I thought they might have got it right-- until I read "Wild Swans" and that novel/ biography of whatsername, Mao's wife. And until Tiannenmen Square. Nope. I've been around a bit since the 70s, and I know now that no-one's got it right.
I could appreciate the beauty of the winter, sure; but I didn't have a car, and trudging through sludge was too much like my childhood in Ireland.
Actually, the desert is beautiful too--- not that I get out there much. But you really HAVE TO have a clear mind to respond to beauty, and from what you describe, being a (bit of) a hermit is a good way to have that. Certainly, the workplace is not conducive to reflection or appreciation--- it's all one can do to survive in it. But hey! we're still standing. And whatever they say, WE ARE WINNING.
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