I woke up this morning. Isn’t that grand? I know that it sounds rather ordinary but there is a certain mystery and beauty about the act of sleeping and then rising at the end of our dreams. It demonstrates a total sense of trust because in truth we are very vulnerable when we are snoozing, and yet in my country we mostly have the privilege of following the rhythm of life for all of our days without worry or harm.
Some of us have insomnia from time to time. Mine comes and goes often with the seasons, the stresses in my life or the amount of caffeine that I have consumed during the course of a day. I’ve learned certain tricks to keep the sleepless nights from becoming habitual, but in truth I simply don’t doze as much as I once did. My days grow longer as a result, and I always find ways to enjoy them like watching the hummingbird in my backyard flit from one plant to another. He’s a cute little thing who’s so quick that you have to really concentrate to catch him performing his antics. He’s mostly around when the bigger birds are busy with whatever it is that they do in the middle of the day. When they return to dominate, my hummingbird takes shelter in some hidden corner of the garden.
When an EMT was rushing my husband to the hospital recently he spoke of the sleep disturbances that firefighters continuously endure. He noted that he had been out on four different runs the night before. He explained that the body begins to react to the constant interruptions of slumber. He reasoned that he would one day need a desk job so that he would be able to enjoy more regular habits. He asserted that fighting fires and driving ambulances is a young man’s game that becomes more and more difficult over time.
I’ve often heard that doctors who are continuously awakened by emergency phone calls from patients generally live a bit less longer than the rest of us. They indeed learn early in their training to exist on far less sleep than everyone else, but it has a negative effect on their overall health. We don’t often stop to think about that when we make those middle of the night requests for their services. I understand that much of the time now patients are told to go to an emergency room or a group of doctors work together to create schedules that only require nighttime vigilance now and again to prevent those constant interruptions. I suppose that they have finally quite wisely decided to do something about the dangers of getting too little sleep.
We humans have been wary of the dark since the beginning of time. Things go bump in the night. Surrendering ourselves to a state of oblivion is necessary for our health but can also be frightening. There are indeed times when we sense the danger in doing so.
I once spoke with a young man whose family was trapped by the high waters that resulted from the collapse of the levees in New Orleans and surrounding areas in the wake of hurricane Katrina. He and his parents somehow managed to get to the top of a freeway overpass. He said that other people were there as well. They took turns sleeping because gators were lurking around not to mention other people with devious intent. He recounted how difficult it was to relax enough to finally reach a state of slumber. He said that he was exhausted but unable to surrender for fear of what might happen when he became unconscious. In many ways falling asleep is the ultimate show of confidence because we just don’t know what will occur while we are out.
I am reminded over and over again of the shock that I felt upon learning that a friend’s husband had died in his sleep. When he failed to get up long after his usual time for rising, she went to check on him and realized that he was not breathing. There had been no signs that something was wrong, no warning of the impending tragedy. While it was definitely a very peaceful way of going, it actually haunted me for a quite some time and reminded me of something that my mother had always done.
She had made a habit of telling me and my brothers how much she loved us before she went to sleep each night. If we had exchanged cross words during the day she apologized whether it had been her fault or not. She insisted that loving words should be the last ones we ever heard, and she followed that way of doing things until the end of her own life. I suspect that she sometimes wished that she had been able to tell my father just how she loved him before he died in his terrible car crash. She learned from that horrible time that we can’t take anything for granted, not even that we will see each other when the sun rises at the start of a new day.
Since my husband’s stroke the happiest part of my mornings comes when he opens his eyes and walks downstairs with a big smile and a greeting. My heart literally fluters with gratitude that both of us are still here and my prayer is that we will be for many days to come. Still I’ve made it a habit of late to do as my mom taught me and express the gratitude and affection that I feel for the people who walk with me in this life.
Our rest revitalizes us and prepares us for the work to come. It should also be a time when we close our eyes confident that we love and are loved, that we forgive and are forgiven. We should celebrate the miracle of each new day that we are allowed to see. There is so much beauty in the people and the world around us. All we need do is open our eyes and soak it all in.
We live in a society of almost instant gratification. If we want a pizza we only have to make a phone call, send a text, or pull one out of the freezer. There are hundreds of television channels at our fingertips offering virtually any kind of viewing pleasure that we may seek. We receive almost instantaneous new alerts on our phones and have the power of capturing memories in photos with the click of those same technological wonders. While we accomplish other tasks we have machines that wash and dry our clothes, vacuum our floors and water our lawns. If we live in a smart home we don’t even have to walk to a light switch to illuminate our rooms, adjust the temperatures or show us who is knocking at our doors. Waiting is becoming more and more of a lost art in our daily lives and yet there are still remnants of frustratingly slow processes and situations that demand our patience.
I once took a psychology class that focused on reviewing the history of learning theories. The professor pointed out that our knowledge of the brain and how it works is less complete than say what we know about the heart. This is because for most of history the brain was considered to be an almost sacred vessel, the repository of the mind and the center of spirituality. For this reason it was considered sacrilege to invade the space in which it resides, even in terms of merely discussing it. 
I often wonder how people find the links to interesting articles and blogs that pop up on Facebook now and again. If there is something intriguing about the title I am prone to take the bait and actually read some of them. Not long ago one of my cousins who thinks very much like me posted an entry from a woman named Maria Stenvinkel who discussed ten things that she would do differently if she had the opportunity to relive her life. One of her ideas was that “life is always now, not tomorrow or next week.”
I have accumulated lots of things over the years. Some of what I own was handed down to me from my elders, other items are treasured gifts from friends and family. I still possess many of the wedding presents that I received almost fifty years ago. Of course I have kept souvenirs from vacation trips and art work from my children and students. There are all of the usual household and clothing items, not to mention furniture and books. I own music and musical instruments, hobby supplies and gardening implements. I keep wrapping paper and greeting cards and decorations for virtually every occasion. I enjoy my collection of little pigs that are supposed to bring me good luck and smile at the thought of the china that my brothers purchased for me using all of their savings when they were still young boys. My possessions represent a lifetime of accumulation and most of the objects are actually somewhat sentimental to me. Still, I remind myself continuously that they are just things and of little value when compared to people and experiences.
