Its summer and outside its exactly 100° F. The black top street in front of my house has three levels of those dancing heat waves. All metal objects, like cars or mailboxes, are surrounded by those squiggle waves, obscuring details and making your head pound in an effort to focus. My house is thankfully enclosed by several giant fir trees, with their heroic shade cooling the house at least a pleasant eight degrees. Everything else is sweltering and warped in a failing effort against the sun and its rays.
If you creep inside the house, and slide the door to my room open, there, in the close-shuttered darkness, a sweat ridden body would be sprawled under a thin sheet. Legs askew and arms flailed above the head, my mouth might be slightly open, or partially closed, still I am restlessly asleep.
Heat, you see, makes me groggy, dull, and tired. I don’t eat, I just read in dark corners until my eyelids grow heavy and I slip down down down into the quiet depths of slumber. The process is slow. One moment I might be reading the same sentence over and over, and the next moment, I am dreaming about a conversation, or a lovely stroll. Its always a dream about a simple action. Maybe I am talking to my sweet-faced man, our laughs gentle and easy, and we walk in a world where the heat has not yet penetrated. It’s quiet, cool, and blissful.
But suddenly, like a leaf blown askew, faltering from its chosen path, I slip and feel like I’m falling. Suddenly, this feeling is real, in my dream…I feel real. And my body naturally tries to right itself and I jerk awake. Almost in surprise, I might look around and see my room, some subtle radio tunes emerging-muffled-from a speaker hidden under a t-shirt. The volume level one is too quiet, and level two is too loud. And indeed I realize: just a dream.
This is an endless cycle, happening countless times, doze and jerk, until true slumber is finally got, and the title nap is achieved.
I know people who can nap every day for hours-on the couch, on their bed, on someone else’s couch or bed-and still sleep like a baby at night. I have never been a napper. There is just too much to do during the day. Too many important tasks to check off, too many people to see. Besides summer, where I am basically driven into a disoriented, hibernating mode, my occasional nap is random, surprising, and few and far in-between. I just can’t fall asleep, sleep for the designated time, and wake up ready to roll. Instead I wake up twice as tired as before. My body is, for the rest of the day, wrapped in that feeling of dozing, that strange watery taste in my mouth no matter what I eat or drink.
At night though, I have little problems sleeping. It doesn’t matter if I am nervous about something. It doesn’t matter if I am stressed out. Maybe I had a bad day and my angry mood follows me to bed. Still, its easy for me to fall asleep and stay asleep. On the rare occasion, I may have the unsystematic night where I can’t fall asleep, or I wake up at four in the morning and cannot escape into oblivion again. Then I will lay there, tossing and turning, eyes open then eyes shut, wanting to do something but still hoping there is a chance that I could grow sleepy. This happens for no real reason that I can think of. Just a little chink in the everyday scheduled groove of our bodies. My superstitious parents blame it on a full moon.
There is of course, the subject of dreams. I’m shouldering a rifle, taking aim and about to shoot a zombie. I’m walking through my third grade classroom, commanding the respect of those around me, and making my horrible mean teacher a puppet of my supreme and god-like powers. I’m walking on an ancient bamboo rope-bridge, which spans a gaping canyon, until the boards crack and I’m falling into nothingness.
Oh yes, I can remember my dreams. I can remember scenes, and people, and moments that go back to my early childhood. I can remember swinging with Mary Poppins until we both jump off and land in a chalk-drawn world. I can remember waking up crying because my unicorn soul mate died and my heart was split in two (I liked horses a lot I guess). And the more realistic dreams, of trees and faces, sometimes I feel like I’m caught in a perpetual sphere of déjà vu. Wherever I am, when I encounter that feeling, it starts like I’ve seen that park in a dream. And then I think, no, I must have seen it first and then dreamed about it. And the more I think about it, the more that dreamy, spacey, confused feeling infuses me and then reality blends with my dream world.
When I was young, my nightmares were filled with vampires. Blood sucking, night-stalking foes of any normal warm blooded mammal and I was terrified of them. Being slowly exposed to the sexuality and sensuousness of such creatures while growing up though, slowly my fear disappeared and my psyche was conditioned into thinking that such a beautiful creature could never harm me. The same went for werewolves, such fuzzy creatures were just overgrown puppies really. And ax murderers never really made an appearance in my night-time entertainment, for entertainment it was with vivid colors and plot, character, and drama.
Sadly now, unless I get eight hours of sleep I can hardly remember my dreams. The brief memory stays with me before I get up and start doing the morning routine, then quickly the dream fades. They aren’t as strange anymore. They aren’t as vivid and thought-provoking. But at least I still have them.
When I am alone in the house, or during summer time when I don’t have to wake up early for school, I’ll turn the radio to volume two, and throw some clothes over the speaker to soften the sound. I can be alone, but I hate being lonely. The radio is just the tool I need to conquer that latter feeling. First, it provides that background noise which makes me feel like there is something happening, like there is life still around me. Second, when the djs talk, it also creates the comforting illusion that someone is there with me.
But sleeping alone is never as wonderful as sleeping with a partner. Arms wrapped around each other and legs tangled, forehead to forehead listening to each others’ breathe, and feeling heartbeats on chests or hands. Getting tired but not able to fall asleep with this warm body rubbing up next to you, reminding you of love and bliss and happiness. Sometimes its been five minutes, or even ten, their breath hasn’t changed but nothing’s been spoken, and after catching a quick glimpse of their closed eyes, you wonder if they are asleep. Sometimes I have to ask, in a quiet and crackling-awkward voice, just a whisper “Are you awake?” And the relief I feel when he opens his eyes and smiles. Relief because I want to be the one to fall asleep first, to have that feeling of supreme comfort and protection. There are no words to describe it. Everyone should feel it.
But even better is waking up next to that someone. The window is closed, and the covers are hot and there is that luscious sweaty sensation, thick as liquid chocolate and just as sweet. The first morning kiss is with parched lips and that annoying one long hair that gets in the way and makes us laugh. Trying to stretch out and getting an elbow in the eye, maybe feigning pain to sneak another head-cradling kiss.
Sneaking away from bed is fun too, though. Not the actual sneaking, but the idea of it. Unfortunately I never have a sexy reason to do it. It’s usually because its 6:30 am and I have to work at 7. I know I’ll be late but I want those extra five minutes caressing some exposed skin, kissing a shoulder. And then its difficult to slide away from a heavy arm, and do the knee-splits over the unconscious body, maybe dizzy and unbalanced from hours of laying and talking, then sleeping.
I can’t sleep very well in a bed that isn’t my own, though. Yes I might fall asleep, but I’ll wake up every couple of hours, never able to find that comfort spot. I’m not one to fall asleep in random areas either. My best friend in High School could fall asleep in every classroom, during lunch in the corner of our student lounge, and again on her couch while we’re watching a movie. She could drop her head and catch a few winks anywhere. I have never fallen asleep in class before, no matter how tired I am. It’s impossible. I have just begun to experience the uncomfort of sleeping in a car after a long trip, or the cramped nap of an airplane. I used to not sleep in either of those.
My favorite way to sleep is on my stomach, one arm tucked under a leg, the other at an angle under my head, feeling slightly like a snake. They say its dangerous to put a baby to sleep on their stomach because it could become hard for them to breathe, but my parents weren’t aware of this danger. And so for twenty years this is the way I fall asleep.
Sleep. I love to sleep. I love falling asleep and that satisfactory stretch after a particularly successful night of sleeping. I love being rested and full of energy. If I am unhappy with life and its circumstances, my minds “happy place,” my retreat, is the though to sleep forever. What’s funny though, is when there are too many social events to go to on the weekends, and I still have to work eight hours in the morning, my favorite saying is “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.” Well either way, at least I’ll be sleeping eventually.
