Night

I’m often awake nights at the moment and the question is usually what to do with my time. Am I tired? Yes. Can I sleep? No. I don’t wake up, I simply never fall asleep. For various reasons which I won’t bore you with, but out of my control, and it’s not just the full moon blaring invisibly behind the dark curtain, sucking at my brains. Do I get up or just twirl in endless frustration, hating my bed in the end?

I go through various states from “OMG I’m so knackered I can’t do anything useful I’ll be staring at the bloody wall for hours” to pondering how fortunate I am to have this quiet time downstairs to begin a handwritten book with fanciful doodles and lovely pens. Usually I end up on the interwebs with at least one delighted cat napping in my lap and certainly preventing any kind of creative writing. Lucky me, I don’t have to stare down the first blank page of that lovely notebook….

night

So what does one do. Drink coffee and eat snacks to perk up properly but ruin your biorhythm even more, or meditate by candle light until you’re so exhausted relaxed that you can sleep through any storm, snoring, or restless neck syndrome? (not working, tested, in bed and out of)

Tonight I’m trying out a middle way, candles, tea and writing you this silly little letter while also clearing my desk. It tends to need that a lot, but it’s not too bad today. I’m going to need a backdrop from the kitchen light behind me to help, but it’s better than full electric. 01:34 as we speak…

02:15 The container I got at IKEA is definitely too tall for pens. Didn’t get it for pens anyway, but I need something for pens! I find myself feeling guilty for rattling too much, so I guess writing would be the smarter option. Do you find yourself getting hungry in the night? I’m thinking the body really isn’t supposed to be, it must be trickery and not an actual need for calories. But then of course it also ought to be shut down for sleep. The front of my brain certainly seems to be going, but I don’t think it’ll sleep through the various disturbances yet.

Has this been a useful exercise? I probably won’t know until daytime, possibly not until I repeat. But not really. An empty desk and a long ramble in exchange for rest doesn’t seem like a real scoop! Otoh perhaps it’s a learning process, to make something useful out of it eventually, a habit. Obviously I can’t begin to bang away at 3″ nails which is my next daytime project (177 of them to be exact).

leonight

Midvinternattens köld är hård,
stjärnorna gnistra och glimma.
Alla sova i enslig gård
djupt under midnattstimma.
Månen vandrar sin tysta ban,
snön lyser vit på fur och gran,
snön lyser vit på taken.
Endast tomten är vaken.

Victor Rydberg, 1881

(Google translate, sorry)
Midwinter cold is intense,
the stars sparkle and gleam.
All sleep in the lonely farm
deep beneath the midnight hour.
The moon wanders its silent track,
snow shines white on pine and spruce,
snow shines white on roof.
Only the brownie is awake.

 

20 tanker om “Night

  1. I don’t know if this will help or not, but I discovered running the humidifier at night gets me to sleep and keeps me there, I think it is the “white noise”. I go through times with very bad sleeping where my body clock is completely off. Right now I am in a bad habit of staying awake until 3 & 5 am; I need to fix that.

    1. I have different periods of different sleep patterns too, this one is caused by back pain and some very loud external noises which can’t be blocked by a low hum unfortunately (otherwise I guess my tinnitus would do the job, LOL). But getting up and being active, then getting by with 4 hours is not the answer, I can tell you that. At least not at my age – I thought we were supposed to need less?!

      1. Have you tried acupuncture or physio? Or a support band? Three of my pregnancies really messed up my back ( to the point of not being able to sit down to eat dinner), one triggered by a snow shoe wipeout. Physio and acupuncture were the only thing that made it manageable . It took about a month of therapy to solve the pain (longer to get normal movement back).

        1. Right now I’m back with my chiro. Normally he’s the type to tell you go home and stop bothering him if he can’t find anything, when I went on Saturday he went “why have you been walking around like that for 6 months, you idiot”. I’m also thinking of getting a physio and perhaps try some reflexology, I haven’t really had much effect from acupuncture, and all the therapists are in the big city anyway (and I’m as far from as I can possibly get, LOL)

          Good to be reminded about the time span. I’ve been all miffed that he didn’t even remove my headache in a day. 😉

  2. I gamle dage viser nyere undersøgelser, var en ubrudt søvn kun noget, man fik hvis man var barn, syg eller meget gammel. Man stod op om natten – efter 3-4 timers søvn, spiste, tissede, nussede rundt, dyrkede lagengymnastik eller havd der nu kunne laves ved kerteskær, og så sov man den “søde søvn” til daggry.
    Skriblerier i en tm bog lyder tiltalende, men jeg tror, hvis jeg skal være ærlig at jeg ville sætte mig foran computeren med en pose slik i din situation. Kan du så sove længe?

    Jeg glæder mig til at høre om et projekt, der involverer præcis 177 søm 😉

    1. Hovsa. WordPress hade mi virkelig. Kan du slette min epostadresse fra denne kommentar – ellers slet den helt, so postern jeg den igen – uden adressen!

      1. Jeg ved ikke helt hvad pokker der skete der, der poppede en meddelelse op om det der login, og så kunne jeg poste dit indlæg ved at trykke approve. Det med adressen tænkte jeg ikke på, det skal jeg huske næste gang.

    2. Jeg tror ikke at sukker er det helt rigtige midt om natten? Jeg kender godt teorien, jeg opfylder den også i perioder, men desværre er et pt. eksterne faktorer som holder mig vågen. Støj fra min krop, og fra gemalens! 😉 Men jeg har aldrig været god til at sove generelt.

      Sømmene vender vi tilbage til.

      1. Støj! Urgh, det er bare det værste. Vi har et eller andet elektrisk, der siger lyde om natten – men kun nogen gange. Jeg troede tilsidst at jeg var ved at blive gal – ægtemanden kunne ikke høre noget – men heldigvis en morgen spurgte en ugleunge hvad det dog var for en irriterende lyd i min seng! Jeg gav ham et stort kys. Nu mangler jeg bare at finde kilden til lyden! Og nej slik/sukker er nok ikke det bedste, men man kan da ikke være fornuftig hele tiden.

  3. I can get to sleep but suffer from frequent wakefulness from 3 am onwards. I don’t get up. I read on my kindle and hope to drop off again around 6. (Which is fine if hubby isn’t getting up until 7 but annoying if I need to be up shortly after 6 myself!) Good luck with getting more sleep.

    1. I used to get that as well. I may try reading in bed rather than get up and mess with warm clothes and cats, just need something to block out the noise too. But it’s pretty destructive for my days to be up and active until 4 am.

        1. I think I’ll try book, earplugs AND headphones next. And stay under the warm covers. Sending hubs to the nose doc asap….

          1. And me just filling the other room up with looms! 😉 Not that it’s far enough away….

  4. I don’t have good advice! I have the opposite problem right now (It is nearly noon & I had 10+ hours last night & can hardly keep my eyes open- so tired it took me like 40 tries to spell ‘opposite’ correctly). But I love the poem at the end. And your utterly relaxed kitty!

    Back to bed now…

    1. Well, I think now we know why you were tired! <3

      We're working on sleeping positions and it seems to have helped with the snoring. So now it's just me that needs to be "quiet" too, but it's a great improvement already.

  5. Hi. Love the poem … are you the ‘brownie’? … I usually sleep well, but if I get out of my routine, your agony sounds very familiar … I get up, make a cup of hot chocolate, sit on my exercise ball, rocking back and forth, and watch 15 minutes of some police drama on TV. I always seem to sleep when I go back upstairs. I hope you find the night ritual that works for you! Jane

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