Sound Sleep

Warmer, drizzly (40?)

That might be a deceiving title, because you know what? Here in the silent, beautiful woods, where I’m happy to live, and I curl up in my down comforter and my blankets next to a crackling fire, looking out over a forest and hearing a river in the distance, I do not sleep soundly. In the city, next to a busy street where buses, street-cleaning trucks, and garbage crews like to bang around at all hours, where streetlights come in every window, where people climb onto the roof next door, I sleep like a baby. There’s such a false sense of security in the city—I have neighbors! They’ll protect me! Marc and I are together! Nothing can happen while we’re together! But out here, in the silent, dark woods, I freak out when the moon casts a shadow through my cabin, and when I get up to investigate, I see my own shadow, and freak out. It's ridiculous.

When I do sleep, I do so fitfully, waking up frequently to assess whether anything wretched has happened yet, and I get up to pee, and get back into bed, and sleep a little, and wake up, and maybe just think for awhile. That’s the thing that really gets me: The thinking. When I was walking the Camino in Spain, I noticed that toward the end I would wake up every night, in the middle of the night, and just think. I’d lie there in some ancient unheated building, on some ancient unpadded bunk bed, in my long underwear, and think. It was around this time of year, and I remember at first I couldn’t figure out why I was waking up in the middle of the night. I wasn’t tired, and I didn’t need to pee. I’d lie there, and I don’t know if I thought about anything important. At first it weirded me out a lot, and I’d try to get back to sleep, but after awhile I got used to it, and I kind of liked it. It was a time that was just mine—no distractions, no one to talk to, nothing in particular to watch out for—just my time to listen to the night and think.

Here it’s not quite like that. My sleeplessness hasn’t turned into a peaceful thing, although I wouldn't mind if it did. It’s like I sleep differently out here, more watchfully; more like an animal on the lookout for stuff.

The last time I awoke this morning it was almost dawn. I meant to go back to sleep, because I still had plenty of time, but I saw movement in the bushes outside, and I put on my glasses to see if there were elk or something, and realized a few minutes later it was just rain pittering down onto the plants. It was pretty, though, watching all that rain in the still of the morning.

Today I moved mattresses, and we worked on Slanty, until we started to get stuff ready for the Camp Director party in Raker. Then I ate cookies and drank cider until I felt sick. Woot! Then I watched “Knocked Up” with Carlo and Jeanette and the kids, and now I’m in bed, and wow! It’s 11:00, and I am sleepy.