PhZzz...

"Take what you have learned, 

and move on."

-- Neil Gaiman, The Sandman: The Dream Hunters

Self portrait 11-3-13

I announced in yesterday's post that I finally graduated from sleep school!

I thought I'd commemorate the big event with an official graduation photo.

I guess you could say I graduated slumber cum laude.

I got all Zs.

I was the valedict-snore-ian.

I earned my PhZ.

Now, if I could only find my dream job.

Back to basics

"You uncover what is when you get rid of what isn't."

-- R. Buckminster Fuller

Self portrait 11-2-13

"We have the choice of two identities:

the external mask which seems to be real ...

and the hidden, inner person who seems to us to be nothing ..."

-- Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation

"There is but one cause of human failure.

And that is man's lack of faith in his true self."

-- William James

After a month of hiding behind disguises (which was a ton of fun), making today's face felt refreshingly simple and straightforward.

And a little weird.

At first I felt a little bit guilty ... like, "Is it OK for it to be just me?"

And then I let go and relaxed into it, and I found out that the answer is indeed "Yes. It is perfectly OK for it to be just me."

Maybe it's more accurate to say I rediscovered that yes, it's OK for it to be just me.

Because I'd totally lost touch with myself and it was nice to look back into nothing but my own face and say "Hey, you. I thought you'd never come back. Welcome home."

Sometimes you have to scrape off the paint and get down to the bare canvas -- get back to basics.

For me, this feeling goes a whole lot deeper than just self-portraits.

Over the past year, I definitely lost touch with myself. I was stumbling blind in a fog of insomnia, fatigue, depression, anxiety ... pick your poison.

But thanks to some really amazing people who had faith in me -- and thanks my own hard work, motivation, commitment and faith in myself -- the fog lifted and I found my way back.

The best news is that I finally graduated from sleep school!

This is huge. 

After three months of weekly drives (90 minutes each way) to a sleep disorders center, after working with a sleep psychologist on restructuring my sleep, and a psychiatrist/sleep specialist on sorting out my biochemistry, after keeping meticulous sleep diaries of all my sleeping and waking moments throughout every single night, after re-teaching my brain how to get sleepy at night instead of ramped up and anxious, after getting used to the taste of decaf ... 

Well, what it all means is that I can sleep again. Like real people. All by myself. Regularly. From midnight to 7 a.m. Every night (Unless I stupidly break the rules that I know are there to keep me on the rails.) And if I do go off the rails, I have been given the tools, the strategy, the way to get myself back on track.

Which means I don't feel helpless anymore.

Which means I don't feel hopeless anymore.

Which means I feel more like my true self than I've felt in a really long time.

And that's a huge relief. Because honestly?  It got pretty fucking scary and I seriously started doubting whether I'd never make it back.

But I did.

I made it.

Here I am.

"Hey, you."

She didn't bat an eye

"Around us the night creatures have their say. 

We are surrounded by a symphony."

-- Libby  Bray, The Sweet Far Thing

Self portrait 9-3-13

"The streetlight outside my house shines on tonight 

and I'm watching it like it could give me a vision ... 

make me bright and beautiful

so all the moths and bats would circle me 

like I was the center of the world and held secrets."

-- Sherman Alexie,  

The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven

"The baby bat

Screamed out in fright,

Turn on the dark,

I'm afraid of the light."

-- Shel Silverstein

My sleep doctor gave me a prescription.

It's not a pill.

It's rules.

It's a sleep prescription.

She said that for the next several weeks, I have to take sleep like it's medication ... at specific times and specific doses. 

She didn't bat an eye as she told me I am not allowed to go anywhere near bed until 3 a.m., and that even if I don't fall asleep until 7 or even 7:30, I still have to get up at 8.

If it works and I start sleeping solidly between 3 and 8 a.m., my "dose" gets titrated up. The plan is to increase my allowed amount sleep weekly until I am ultimately sleeping a healthy number of regular hours.

Hopefully.

It's part of my insomnia "cure." It's a process called sleep restructuring, and I really hope it works. 

Like many prescriptions, there are side effects. For instance:

• You may watch endless back to back to back to back episodes of Miami Ink, because you've already watched every episode of L.A. Ink and New York Ink.
• You may stand on the patio in boxer shorts in the rain at 1 a.m. and take pictures of the sky.
• You may drink a bottle of O'Doul's at 2 a.m., even though you think O'Doul's tastes like dirty dishwater, but you are supposed to avoid alcohol near bedtime but the guys on Miami Ink are drinking beer and a cold one sounds really fucking good right now. 

Staying up until 3 a.m. isn't easy. I kind of run out of stuff to do. If I try to read, I doze off. And that's a no-no. I'm not supposed to do anything "stimulating." I'm supposed to do intentionally boring shit. Hence, the Miami Ink.

So for most of those long, night hours, I just "am."
I hang out.
I exist.
I wait.
I'm a lonesome night creature watching the slow crawl of time until my next meager fix.

Sticking to it

"Another behavior that responds well to a sticker chart is sleeping independently. 

If the child stays in his own bed all night he can earn a sticker in the morning."

--Amy Morin, 

"Sticker Charts: Motivate your Preschooler with a Reward System"

Self portrait 8-21-13

"Sometimes we take action, sometimes we take pills."

-- Fall Out Boy

"I don't need a life that's normal

That's way too far away

But something next to normal

would be okay

Yeah, something next to normal

That's the thing I'd like to try

Close enough to normal

To get by."

-- Alice Ripley, 

"Maybe/Next to Normal," Next to Normal

Hanging in there.

Doing what I have to do to get my F'd up sleep re-ordered.

Following the rules, mostly.

Taking the meds, daily.

Sleeping better, sometimes.

Keeping positive, for the most part.

Little victories, incremental progress, baby steps.

Let's pretend

"Let's pretend for just one moment that could actually happen.

You close your eyes and I'll close mine

and let's dream the same dream ..."

-- Annabel Pitcher, Ketchup Clouds

Self portrait 8-10-13

"Pretending to feel something you don't

can often lead you to the real thing, 

in some form."

-- Stacey Kade, The Rules

"Not like this. 

He wanted it to be real."

-- Suzanne Collins, Catching Fire

Never never never give up

"... it wasn't that things were harder than you thought they were going to be,

it was that they were hard in ways that you didn't expect."

-- Lev Grossman, The Magician King

Self portrait 8-2-13

"She had changed in ways she would never have been able to anticipate.

She had become the kind of person who was barely able to get out of bed

in the morning without buckling beneath the tidal pull of the planets."

--  Kevin Brockmeier, The View from the Seventh Layer

"Perseverance is the hard work you do 

after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did."

-- Newt Gingrich

My mom has a refrigerator magnet with a famous quote from Winston Churchill.  

It says "Never never never give up."

It's a lovely thought. Nice advice. I'm sure it works for some people.

It's a good mantra for those persevering types -- the scrappy ones, the fighters, the tough guys, the folks with lots of tenacity and chutzpah -- folks like my mom, who has been through some pretty tough life, but who keeps bouncing back. You can knock her down, but she won't stay there. 

I have inherited a lot of traits from my mother -- good ones and other ones -- but I feel like I lack her fighting spirit. 

I mean, I'm fighting. I've fought. But lately, it seems like I'm just taking ineffective, lazy, punch-drunk swings at an opponent who is bobbing and weaving and pummeling the shit out of me round after round, throwing punches I never see coming.

I'm sure it's the fatigue talking, but after being awake for 42 hours straight, giving up sounds like a good option. 

Laying down on the mat for a good long 10-count sounds blissful.

Ding the bell.

Throw in the towel.

I can't take another round.

When I get like this, when my knees are buckling and the world feels like it's tipping, I'm glad I have people in my corner who are helping to prop me up.

I have two sleep specialists -- a psychologist who is handling my sleep counseling, and a psychiatrist/sleep medicine physician who is helping sort out my biochemistry to get to the root of my insomnia.

They are asking me questions, looking hard at my sleep behaviors, poking around in my brain to help me figure out and fix whatever has gone so impossibly haywire.

There are other people, too.

My husband and my sons have shown me unbelievable patience and kindness. Trust me, they have more of a right than anybody to launch an uppercut at my chin, but they don't.  They are sensitive about when I need some space, and when I need a good laugh, and when I don't know what I need at all. If I am too tired to participate, they understand. Or at least they pretend to, anyway.

I have a couple of friends who check in periodically and ask -- really ask -- how it's going. They tolerate my long silences and absences without making me feel like I'm the shittiest friend on the planet.

I have a sister who remembers stuff -- like that I was going for my first sleep evaluation appointment -- and texted me to say good luck.

I have an acupuncturist who can work miracles.

I have a massage therapist who knows, without me saying a word, exactly what I need.

I have "M," my secret weapon.

And I have my faces. 

The funny thing about a 365-days project is that it trundles along no matter how I feel. It doesn't care if I slept or not, or have pain or not. It's just exists, a day at a time.

And there's still lots of time to go. 

It's only August, and there are five full months remaining in this year. 

If filling those five months with a face a day helps get me through the hardest parts of re-claiming healthy sleep, then I'll lean into it as hard as I can and hope it holds me up.

I can't give up on this project.
I won't give up on this project.

Never, never, never. 

Maybe I am a little bit of a fighter after all.

I got it from my mama.

Re-tired

"Once I worked hard and thought a lot
but I never got tired;
now I do nothing and think of nothing,
but I'm tired in body and spirit.
My conscience aches day and night."

 -- Anton Chekov, Ivanov

Self portrait 7-9-13

“Tired, 

tired with nothing, 

tired with everything, 

tired with the world’s weight 

he had never chosen to bear.”

-- F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and Damned

"There's a lot of good waiting for you on the other side of tired. 

Get yourself tired, Andre. 

That's where you're going to know yourself. 

On the other side of tired.”

-- Andre Agassi, Open

Giving insomnia the finger (actually four fingers because I hate it that much)

“Every time you come in yelling that God damn "Rise and Shine!" "Rise and Shine!"
I say to myself, "How lucky dead people are!”

-- Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie

Fingers with cutout faces, one in stitches 7-8-13

“Do you wake up as I do, having forgotten what it is that hurts or where, until you move? 

There is a second of consciousness that is clean again. 

A second that is you, without memory or experience,

the animal warm and waking into a brand new world.”

-- Jeanette Winterson

“I didn't want to wake up.

 I was having a much better time asleep. 

And that's really sad.”

-- Ned Vizzini, It's Kind of a Funny Story

Hold on

"I like to use my hands and make things ...

It might seem pretty stupid or  pointless but that doesn't matter ...

Some of the most interesting work is the stuff that starts like that --

out of a raw need for activity."

-- Bruce Nauman

Self portrait in polymer clay 7-7-13

“I don't want to be the one who says life is beautiful.
I want to be the one who feels it.”

-- Marty Rubin

Killing time

 "Again time elapsed."

-- Carolyn Keene, The Secret of the Old Clock

Mixed media self portrait 6-20-13

“The time would not pass. Somebody was playing with the clocks ... ”

-- Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five 

Clocks--that's the problem.
Every clock is a nest of minutes and hours.
Clocks strap us into their shape.
Instead of heading for the nearest star, 

all we do is corkscrew.
Clocks lock us into minutes, make Ferris wheel
riders of us all, lug us round and round
from number to number,
dice the time of our lives into tiny bits
until the bits are all we know
and the only question we care to ask is
"What time is it?"  

-- Jerry Spinelli, Love, Stargirl 

("The Clock on the Morning Lenape Building)

Sleep deprivation chamber

 "... night brings me many a deep remorse.

I realize that from the cradle up I have been

like the rest of the race -- never quite sane in the night."

-- Mark Twain

" We wake in the night, to stereophonic silence."

 -- Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook

Self portrait 6-19-13

"Beware thoughts that come in the night.  

They aren't turned properly; 

they come in askew, free of sense and restriction, 

deriving from the most remote of sources."

 --William Trogdon 

"Ghosts were created when the first man awoke in the night."

 -- J.M. Barrie, Little Minister 

Luna tick, Luna tock

“Zaphod felt he was teetering on the edge of madness 

and wondered if he shouldn't just jump over and have done with it.”

-- Douglas Adams, 

The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Polymer clay face 5-30-13

“Of all the things a man may do, sleep probably contributes most to keeping him sane.” 

-- Roger Zelazny,  Isle of the Dead 

“I lie on the floor, washed by nothing and hanging on. 

I cry at night. I am afraid of hearing voices, or a voice. 

I have come to the edge, of the land.

I could get pushed over."

-- Margaret Atwood, Cat's Eye

Ding ding ding!

Insomnia fun fact!

Since I was up all night and the moon was big and bright ...

Luna is the Roman name for the Greek goddess of the moon, Selene. She is best known in ancient art and literature for her role in the myth of Endymion.

Endymion was a shepherd, and is thought to be the first human to observe the movements of the moon. I figure he watched the moon a lot because he was up at night literally counting sheep and looking out for predators that might be stalking his flock in the dark.

At least he had a good reason to be awake, unlike me, who was up all night fending off anxiety, agitation and total lunacy by polishing all of my boots and shoes, lifting weights, reading a photography magazine, and watching Robert Irvine salvage yet another dying eatery on "Restaurant Impossible."

Ding ding ding!

Bonus insomnia fun fact!

"Lunacy" is a term that comes from the word lunaticus, which means ... wait for it ... "of the moon" or "moonstruck". "Lunatic" is a term referring to people who are considered mentally ill, dangerous, foolish or unpredictable. Hence, today's crazy face.

Yay! Fun with etiology!

But back to our myth.

According to the story, Selene (aka Luna) was super-infatuated with Endymion the hottie demigod shepherd, who was a son of Zeus, and who was young and beautiful (especially, it seems, by moonlight).

Apparently, Selene/Luna thought Endymion looked particularly good when he was asleep, so good, in fact, that she asked Zeus to grant him eternal youth and eternal sleep so that she could enjoy gazing at his flawless, moonlit, slumbering face forever and ever. Zeus granted her request, and every night until the end of time, Selene visits Endymion where he sleeps endlessly and eternally in a cave on Mount Latmus.

Sleeps endlessly and eternally ...

I'm totes jelly.

Some hottie demigod shepherds have all the luck.

Ding ding ding!

This isn't fun anymore.

Simple as that

"We spend so much time creating a facade of what we want to project to the world, 

we almost forget what we ourselves are truly about in the process."

-- Jason R. Thrift, The Civilization Loop: The End Is the Beginning

Self portrait 5-24-13

Self portrait 5-24-13

"Sometimes the simple

 is the most difficult.”

-- Linda Olsson

When I tell people about my self-portrait projects, I get mixed reactions. The response that intrigues me most is one of sheer horror. In this Facebook world of self-image over-indulgence, believe it or not, there are people who just can't fathom even taking, much less sharing, photos of themselves. 

I must admit that some self-portraits are easier to share than others. It's the simple ones that are, for me, the most difficult. No costume to hide behind. No effects. No makeup. No disguises. No body paint. No sunglasses. No nothing. Just me. Me looking straight into the camera. Exposed. Open. Unadorned. Vulnerable.

These are the self-portraits that put a lump in my throat as I press the "publish" button.

The ones of the "real" me. 

If you look intently enough, this kind of self-portrait contains flashes of me at age 4, at age 8, at age 21 ... all of me are in there looking back at me. It can be unsettling. Disturbing. Scary.

But I find a kind of solace in these images as well -- a sort-of settling as I lock eyes with my self. It's a "Well, I guess this is where we are" kind of feeling. It feels true, and honest, and basic, and actual, and real, and centering somehow. Like getting back to the most basic basics. To the barest bare bones.

Lately, my daily existence feels as if it has been ground down to its bare bones. As I scrabble to live with the unpredictable and arbitrary side-effects of chronic insomnia, sleep deprivation, chronic pain and fatigue, I am learning a different approach toward how to live. Less is definitely more when you don't have the energy for much. I am adapting, surviving, by keeping my agenda as clear, as empty, as unscheduled and as simple as I can. I have pared away all but the absolutely necessary-est involvements, relationships and commitments.

My brain can't handle complicated right now. My spirit can't handle difficult. And my body can't handle hard. Sometimes I can't even bear the weight of clothing much less the weight of demands or expectations. My softest, least binding t-shirt and a pair of worn, loose jeans is as dressed as I can get. 

Anyway.

Even though it might seem like I am looking out at you from this self-portrait, I am actually looking in, at me. I am simply letting you see what I see.

And that is the hardest part.

Is it getting dark in her?

“... Richard began to understand darkness: 

darkness as something solid and real, 

so much more than a simple absence of light. 

He felt it touch his skin, questing, moving, exploring: gliding through his mind. 

It slipped into his lungs, behind his eyes, into his mouth ...” 

-- Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere

Self portrait 5-23-13

“There is darkness inside all of us, though mine is more dangerous than most. 

Still, we all have it—that part of our soul that is irreparably damaged 

by the very trials and tribulations of life. 

We are what we are because of it, or perhaps in spite of it.” 

-- Jenna Maclaine, Bound By Sin

Self portrait 5-23-13

 

“What strange places our lives can carry us to, what dark passages.” 

--Justin Cronin, The Passage

   

I am trying really hard.

I am trying really hard to keep my attitude positive. 

I am  trying really hard to function normally in spite of persistent sleep deprivation.

I am trying really hard to change my perspective and not see my insomnia as a curse, or as the whole universe conspiring against me, but rather as a mere inconvenience that I have work around for now, or forever.

I am trying really hard to use my sleepless nights constructively, to grab control of them before they get any traction so that they don't wreck me. When I can't sleep, I water the garden, mop the kitchen floor, bake banana bread and cookies, lift weights -- all in an effort to stay a step ahead of the anxiety-riddled fatigue that stalks from the dark perimeter.

All of this trying really hard helps, sort of, for a limited time and to a certain degree, for a while, -ish. 

Me and my insomnia are learning to co-exist like roommates who don't have a choice, who are forced together circumstantially and made to cohabit even though they don't really like each other all that much -- who honestly loathe each other -- but who are good at faking it, at play-acting a charade of civility and politeness and tolerance, who are good at making the best of an unavoidable situation so that nobody gets hurt and the rent gets paid.

Still, in spite of all that genteel courtesy and politesse, something still lurks in the shadows, twitching, watching, waiting. Waiting to ambush me, like Cato in the Pink Panther movies, the martial arts genius who masquerades as a humble manservant and who hides behind doors and atop bookshelves in Inspector Clouseau's house and repeatedly jumps out and attacks and beats the shit out of Clouseau in his own home.

That's how living with insomnia feels -- like I'm constantly being ambushed in my own home -- in the one place where I should feel the safest and most protected. 

It's hard not to get skittish, watchful, fearful.

Dark.

Because even though I am trying really hard to outwardly project a brave and positive face, the darkness still blooms and spreads, like internal bleeding. I have to let it out from time so it doesn't destroy me. I guess that's what today's post is about. It's a bloodletting, of sorts -- a controlled attempt to draw out the darkness and bad humors -- to let the poison out before it kills me.

Serenity now!

"We can be serene even in the midst of calamities."

-- Swami Satchidananda, The Yoga Sutras

 

"Let reality be reality."

                                                 -- Lao Tzu

Stone garden statue in my backyard 5-18-13

Frank:      "Serenity now! Serenity now!"
George:    "What is that?"
Frank:       "The doctor gave me a relaxation cassette. When my blood pressure gets too high,
                  the man on the tape tells me to say 'serenity now!"
George:     "Are you supposed to yell it?"
Frank:       "The man on the tape wasn't specific."

-- Frank and George Costanza, Seinfeld episode 159, "The Serenity Now"

I am trying a new approach.

Instead of lying awake all night struggling for sleep that never comes, I have decided to stop fighting against my insomnia and start cooperating with it instead.

The first step is acceptance.

Insomnia is my "calamity." It is the card I've been dealt. It is my reality and it doesn't seem to be going away any time soon. 

So we're going to have to find a way to co-exist.

I think it's called coping.

I did a dry-run of the new plan last night. It went like this:

I went to bed at 11:30 p.m.

I was still wide awake at 2 a.m., so I got up and lifted weights for an hour. 

I know, I know. Trust me, I know. All the sleep advice says not to exercise late in the day or in the evening, because it might disrupt normal sleep patterns. Well guess what? My sleep patters are already abnormally fucked and I'm not sleeping anyway. Also, I've been wanting to work some strength training into my routine. And, 2 a.m. is neither late in the day nor is it evening. It is technically early, early morning. So I was actually getting a head start. Look at me being the early bird. Getting that worm.

I was wider awake (and sweaty) at 3 a.m., so I baked molasses cookies.

My very wise friend Jill suggested this tactic. In an email (all the way from Chile!), Jill wrote:

"Do you ever cook at night? 

I used to do that a lot. Actually, baking, more often. 

You can just make tons and tons of things, because it doesn't require a lot of concentration 

and it gives you something to do that has a tangible outcome. 

Plus you live with guys, so they can eat your stuff." 

She was right. 

It didn't require much concentration and I wound up with a satisfying pile of 5 dozen delicious cookies that made my not-sleeping seem not-so-futile. Plus, the house smelled amazing -- spicy and welcoming and homey. Jill was also right that the guys I live with would eat my stuff. This morning, my husband went back for thirds with his coffee. Even my paleo, carnivorous, carb-hating weightlifter-of-a-son gobbled a few. As he was chewing one cookie and reaching for another, he told me, "These are really good cookies." Bonus mom points.

While the cookies baked, I watched an interview from 2009 with Jason Bateman on "Inside the Actor's Studio," in which Bateman said there would be a film version of  Arrested Development. Wait, what? Did I miss something or is Jason Bateman just a big fat liar?

At 4 a.m. I was still pretty awake (and salty about Jason Bateman being a liar and all), but I went back to bed anyway. I drifted off around 5 and dreamed that an old friend and I were de-hoarding her mother's house. So it appears as though I accomplished that, too.

I slept about an hour and a half. 

I was awake again at 6:22 a.m. and got up for another day. 

This day. 

And even though my eyes are puffed like Mr. Magoo, and even though I am really tired and will probably be pretty much worthless for the rest of this day, at least I managed to sidestep a lot of the negative, toxic, self-loathing, dark, emotional and psychological turmoil and anxiety that usually shits on my sanity while I'm lying helpless and hopelessly awake for hours and hours on end. 

Also, my shoulders look pretty buff.

Can I buy a Z?

“Winston was gelatinous with fatigue.”

                                                                                             -- George Orwell, 1984

Polymer clay face 5-10-13

“You cannot imagine the craving for rest that I feel—a hunger and thirst.”

                                                                                     --H. G. Wells, When the Sleeper Wakes

Soooooo tired.

After an all-too-short sort-of hiatus, my insomnia has stalked me down again, with a vengeance.
Just when I thought I was making some miniscule headway, crawling out of the dark and tangled forest a sleep-drug-free inch at a time, insomnia reached out and snatched me back into its spiky, spiny briars.
And not just the "it takes a long time to fall asleep" kind of insomnia. Oh no. It's the "wide awake all f***ing night, a 42 mile bike ride, two Ambiens, two Unisoms, a fistful of melatonin and valerian, white noise machine, sleep hypnosis CD, all the chamomile tea in the world can't touch it" kind of insomnia.

Forget about catching Zs. I can't even buy any Bs or Cs.
Go big or go home, right?

I frequently, seriously and hopelessly wonder if it will ever get better, or if the rest of my life is going to be this -- this search, this struggle, this quest for something that is supposed to just naturally happen, that is one of the most basic functions of being human. Or maybe it's not so much as a "quest for" what should be happening, as it is a wish to "escape from" what actually is happening, this mean and terrible thing.

Either way, it's a tug and pull that is grinding me down, hard. A lifetime of it looks pretty bleak.

Not sleeping can crush a whole day -- just pulverize any possibilities and potential into a dry pulpy dust.
So as a result, I don't make plans.
I don't look ahead.
I don't commit to anything.
I don't "hope for."
I don't make promises.
I don't go anywhere.
I have no great expectations.
I have no not-so-great expectations.

Because chances are I won't be able to show up or follow through anyway. And I hate having to back out of things and cancel stuff all the damn time. An uninterrupted string of empty blank squares on my calendar is soothing, a comfort. If I don't make plans, then I don't have to worry about letting anybody down, because nobody is expecting anything from me. It's easier to just say no, and to isolate myself, like I'm under quarantine. At least behind the self-protective closed door of my life I'm the only sufferer.

And behind the closed door, I have this 365 days project. And I will not let insomnia ruin this. Because right now, this seems to be the one thing that I can plan on, look forward to, commit to, hope for and expect. It's someplace I can go. It's the only promise I seem to be able to keep. So I will cling to it.

I tried to shoot a self portrait today, but for the first time all year I just deleted every photo, every file.
I looked ninety eight.
And not a good ninety eight.
I haven't played with my clay in a while, so I sculpted this exhausted little face as a stand-in for my own.
My fingerprints are all over him, though. So I guess it is a self portrait of sorts.

Or more accurately, a self portrait out-of-sorts.

Sigh.

Is that all there is?

“It's a very salutary thing to realize that the rather dull universe 

in which most of us spend most of our time 

is not the only universe there is.”

                                                                                                 -- Aldous Huxley

Self portrait 4-12-13

I am a prisoner held captive by chronic pain.
It is a lonely confinement that holds me hostage, day and night.
Some days are better than others.
Sometimes, my pain allows me some freedom -- a little fresh air and sunshine, some semblance of "normal."
But other times ... other times are something else entirely.
Other times, daylight is snuffed out and the prison walls close in.
The unrelenting pain is exhausting -- physically, emotionally, psychologically.

It starves me of precious sleep. (The stingy sleep rations here are like watery slop shoved under the door on a filthy tin plate.)
It steals my confidence.
It grinds down my defenses.
It erodes my relationships.
It devours hope and shits despair.

It's tempting to give up.

Except that I've found an escape.
I've located a secret passageway that takes me to another place. A place beyond the pain.
These faces.
This art.
This blog.
This is how I escape the pain.

I can't stay here forever, of course. My visits are clandestine. It is a temporary sanctuary. But a sanctuary nonetheless.
Here, I forget the pain if only for a little while.
Here, something like a blessing lifts me up and out and away.
Here, there is a kind of relief, even if it is simply a momentary distraction, a fleeting illusion.
Whatever it is, I don't care.
Until the pain snatches me back from this other place, I'll sink hard and deep into the sweet beautiful weightlessness of this atmosphere. I will cling desperately, begging it to devour me, to gobble me up so that I never have to go back into my hungry captor's claws.

But I know pain will hunt me down.
I can already hear its footsteps closing in.
Feel its hot, sour breath on my neck.

Baby come back ... a love letter

“Fatigue is here, in my body, in my legs and eyes. 

That is what gets you in the end."

                                                                               -- Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale

Self portrait 4-9-13

"Sometimes you just gotta hope for the hope of having hope some day."

                                                                                                        -- Jeffery Thompson

Dear Sleep,

I miss you.

It's been so long, and I feel like we've drifted so far apart. But if the chasm hasn't grown too wide and deep, if there is still even the slimmest shred of a possibility of a tiny flicker of hope that we can somehow maybe repair the rift, then I am ready to make amends.

Our separation has been painful for me. 

If I have offended you in some way, I am sorry. 

If I have taken you for granted, please forgive me.

Living without you has been miserable. My days and nights are flooded with sweet memories and happy thoughts of you and how we used to be.  

We used to be so good together.

Can we please try again?

I promise I'll treat you better this time. 

I'll be nicer. 

I'll try harder.

I'll be prettier, taller, funnier ... whatever you need me to be.

Just please, please, come back.

I'll leave a light on for you.

Desperately,
Me

Hey. Hey? Are you awake?

"The worst thing in the world is to try to sleep and not to." 

                                                                                                -F. Scott Fitzgerald

Self portrait 4-5-13

I don't sleep well.
I don't sleep enough.
In fact, all too often I don't sleep at all. 
This is not by choice.
I get super annoyed by the "you need more sleep" advice that says people need to stop skimping on sleep, stop being so busy and dedicate more time to shut-eye. As if sleeping or not sleeping is merely a simple choice.
Like blue socks or black socks?
Tuna or salmon?
Paper or plastic?
Trust me, if sleep was merely a simple choice, I'd be choosing it.
But you can't always get what you want.
And sometimes, you can't even get what you need.
Because the cruel hand of whatever evil tyrant rules the night keeps rocking the cradle, jarring you awake as soon as you begin to drift.

"Hey. Hey! Are you awake?"

I understand now why they use sleep deprivation as a means of torture.

Insomnia is a cruel, cold-hearted bitch.

I read a lot about not sleeping when I'm not sleeping. It doesn't help. It's kind of like smelling something delicious, like fresh bread baking, without getting to eat any of it. It just leaves you feeling left out and hungry. Also, it's not all that sleep-inducing or comforting, at 3 a.m., to find out that chronic sleep deprivation can increase your risk of heart disease. And type 2 diabetes. As well as cause:

• irritability
• cognitive impairement
• memory lapse/loss
• impaired moral judgment
• symptoms of ADHD
• impaired immune system
• decreased reaction time/accuracy
• aches
• tremors
• hallucinations
• psychosis

The jury is still out on whether sleep deprivation can kill humans. But it has killed animals in sleep deprivation research studies. Rats. Dogs. Puppies.

That's right. Puppies. Dead puppies.

Sweet dreams.

Twinkle, twinkle

“Rather nice night, after all. 

Stars are out and everything. 

Exceptionally tasty assortment of them.” 

                                                                          -- F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and Damned

Night face, 4-1-13

“Could it be that the planets are castaway heads.”

                                                              

                                                             -- Visar Zniti, The Condemned Apple: Selected Poetry