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

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

Moody blues

“The memory has as many moods as the temper, 

and shifts its scenery like a diorama.”

-- George Eliot,  
Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life

Self portrait 6-26-13

“...trying to use willpower to overcome the apathetic sort of sadness that accompanies depression 

is like a person with no arms trying to punch themselves until their hands grow back. 

A fundamental component of the plan is missing and it isn't going to work.”

-- Allie Brosh, Hyperbole and a Half

Self portrait 6-26-13

“The momentum of the mind can be vexingly, involuntarily capricious.”

-- Gregory Maguire, 

A Lion Among Men

Feeling all kinds of everything, all colliding all over me, all at once, all the time. 

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 

Naked Barbies in mustaches!

“Different though the sexes are, they inter-mix. 

In every human being a vacillation from one sex to the other takes place, 

and often it is only the clothes that keep the male or female likeness, 

while underneath the sex is the very opposite of what it is above.” 

-- Virginia Woolf

Naked Barbies in mustaches 6-1-13

“I have not lived as a woman. I have lived as a man. 

I've just done what I damn well wanted to, and I've made enough money to support myself, 

and ain't afraid of being alone.” 

-- Katharine Hepburn 

"The wounded child inside many females is a girl who was taught from early childhood 

that she must become something other than herself, 

deny her true feelings, in order to attract and please others.”

-- Bell Hooks, All About Love: New Visions 

In today's edition of Helpful Advice from an Exhausted Insomniac's Addled, Sleep-Deprived Brain ...

Sometimes you've gotta do what you've gotta do just to keep breathing.

If gluing silicone mustaches on naked thrift store Barbies helps to get you through a day without totally losing your shit, then for fuck's sake, please glue silicone mustaches on naked thrift store Barbies.

Because the way I see it, gluing silicone mustaches on naked thrift store Barbies doesn't hurt anybody. It might keep you from hurting yourself. And it's fun for the Barbies!

Here at A Face A Day, that's what we call a "win-win-win".

So if you feel like you might be about to lose your shit, STOP!
Be a win-win-winner, like me, and glue silicone mustaches on naked thrift store Barbies instead!

Next time on Helpful Advice from an Exhausted Insomniac's Addled, Sleep-Deprived Brain, I'll discuss some burning insomniac questions, like "Who the fuck is going to eat all of these cookies?" and "3 a.m. Dilemma: Ironing or pumping iron?"

Love me tender

"Oh, she may be weary
Young girls they do get weary ..."

-- Otis Redding, "Try a Little Tenderness"

Self portrait 5-31-13

“And then I remember this morning and I wonder 

if it really happened or if I dreamed it. 

It was nice. And weird. And tender. 

I'm not used to tender. It's a fossil, that word. 

Conditions changed and it died out. Like the woolly mammoth.” 

-- Jennifer Donnelly, Revolution

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.

4 a.m. blues

“There is a dead spot in the night, 

that coldest, blackest time 

when the world has forgotten evening 

and dawn is not yet a promise. 

A time when it is far too early to arise, 

but so late that going to bed makes small sense.”

-- Robin Hobb, Assassin's Quest 

Polymer clay face 5-15-13

"I could hear the roots of loneliness 

creeping through me when the world was hushed 

at four o'clock in the morning.” 

-- Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

“Night is the hardest time to be alive  ...

It lasts so long, and four a.m. knows all my secrets.”

                                    -- Poppy Z. Brite

Only if for a night

 And it's breaking over me,
A thousand miles down to the sea bed,
Found the place to rest my head.
Never let me go, never let me go.
Never let me go, never let me go.

-- Florence + The Machine, "Never Let Me Go"

Self portrait 5-12-13

“Self abandoned, relaxed and effortless,

I seemed to have laid me down in the dried-up bed of a great river; 

I heard a flood loosened in remote mountains, 

I felt the torrent come; 

to rise I had no will,
to flee I had no strength.”

                                                                                              -- Charlotte Bronte, Jayne Eyre
 
 

I slept.

All night.

Somehow I cracked the code.

Probably it had something to do with the fact that I had slept less than 2 hours in the previous 36. 

But still ...

I am rested and alert -- a strange feeling for sure -- all buzzy and tingly. Scrubbed. 

When I woke, I wanted to marinate -- no, to drown, in the beautiful buzziness. 

I wanted to sink further into it and soak it up and to never get out of bed again lest I break the spell -- that magical convergence of fatigue, hope, hopelessness, the planets, the gods, and pure dumb luck that mercifully pulled me under and held me beneath the surface, only if for a night.

I know the spell won't last.

All magic spells are momentary, breakable, un-doable.

There is always a reversal, an anti-spell. 

But for now I will accept this elusive and magical gift that comes along but once in a very blue moon, before it slips away and is eventually and inevitably, undone.

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.

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