As I’ve noted before in these pages, I’ve long been a poor sleeper. Takes me a long time to feel drowsy, and even once my eyelids start to droop and I’ve turned out the light, a longer time to actually drop off.
Sometimes it’s body aches or pains. You should see the current, yellowing bruise on my knee from trying to shove a heavy PC standing frame into the back of the car. Or the amount of Ben-Gay needed to tamp down a shoulder muscle wrenched by lifting the umpteenth box of books from the “to be cataloged” pile to the “ready to sell” pile. More often, though, it’s my restless mind turning round and round, a dog unable to settle, a hamster addicted to speed.
This difficulty in dropping off means I have developed — or looked up on the internet at 1 in the morning — an array of strategies to shush that mental fussing. Picturing happy times with Timothy (although this often backfires, and I feel sad as well as restless). Imagining a sailboat skimming across beloved bays, or a gentle chestnut mare trotting through woodland glades. Listening to old favorite music that helped me doze off some time in the remote past (Ommadawn, anyone?). Putting my good ear closer to a purring cat.
And counting. Counting and breathing, one to ten. Counting and breathing one to 100. Counting and breathing from 100 backwards to zero.
Counting on … the count-in
Most of the time at least one strategy works, eventually. But no surprise, to me and likely to you, too, that in these dark days of pandemic stress, they work less and less reliably with every day that passes.
Nonetheless, I am a believer in the power of joy over fear. Of hope over cynicism. I may not live up to my own standards as I’d like to, but at least I make the effort. Most days, anyway.
It cheers me up beyond words to hear about other people’s efforts to use joy to help the rest of us endure the isolation, the boredom, the fearfulness, of “Stay home, stay healthy.” And beyond hearing about the story on my lifeline — which other people call NPR — or reading about it in one of our great newspapers of record, I am cheered up like nobody’s business to see joy in action.
To me, nothing is more joyous than people leaping about in rhythmic harmony. You might know it as “dancing.” Once upon a time, dancers were my tribe and my people. And when my friend D. sent this link from The Hollywood Reporter, I pinned it to the top of my YouTube feed. I think I’ll need to watch it several times a day until the storm blows over.
Enjoy.