Sunday, February 10, 2013

Thanks, Newton

It was Newton who said that a body at rest tends to remain at rest and at the moment I feel as if I were put here on earth to prove that shit.
I am not sure if I am suffering from inertia or ennui or the dregs of the illness or just a further intensification of my disinterest in leaving home. Whatever it is, it is strong. Mr. Moon talked about going to a movie today and I almost passed out at the thought. He also suggested we go to a big home show in town and that made me sort of want to die.
It's just all too much. I have always said that far from being Super Woman, I can only claim to be Barely Adequate Woman and these days even that is stretching it.

I don't know. I don't know.

I do know that for whatever reason, it is impossible for me to sleep through the night. I wrote awhile  back about how it is an artificial and fairly modern thing to believe that we should do that- sleep a straight-through eight hours. That other cultures have no such belief and cheerfully wake up in the darkest hours and get up to have a little meal or sit around with others who are awake and relate dreams or whatever. I did not nap yesterday and I did not have my afternoon espresso and I took two Benadryl before bed and still, I woke up around two-thirty and was awake until after four. I ate a few crackers, I read. I didn't worry about it. If my body wants so badly to keep these particular hours that it will fight through the grogginess, the fairly powerful effects of the antihistamine, then who am I to try and force sleep upon it? This probably contributes to my disinterest in going anywhere. It is hard to get up the energy to think about going to town or doing almost anything at all when I feel such a persistent low-level of fatigue.
Maybe. Maybe that's it. Or maybe I am just becoming more and more neurotic or some other form of crazy, I do not know. But again, I am not really fighting it. Not today, at least.
It is, after all, Sunday, and this whole past week has felt like one long lost weekend. Tomorrow is Monday and I have things which I must do and therefore, will do, and it will be time to take a walk again, to at least move my body more than I have been, to fight the inertia, the ennui, the crazy. The boys are coming out today for a little while and that will be nice. I have, of course, laundry to do and plenty of things around here that require some attention and as always, I can figure out plenty of ways to waste time which require neither the putting on of a bra or the use of gasoline.

It is Sunday and I am going to allow myself this one more day to be at home, to make excuses for not engaging in the activities of the marketplace or of people or the world in general. I feel low and flat and completely uninspired.
Thus it is.

I am a body at rest. It will not always be this way, but for right now it simply is.





11 comments:

  1. Oh thank goodness I've never lived in or known any of those cultures who don't value sleep. Here in Libya may not sleep through the night because they nap. Why work more than 4 hours a day when there are naps to be had? Makes getting anything done impossible, but mostly I'm jealous.

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  2. Can I tell you i love this post? I know this feeling intensely well, in fact, it is exactly what I am feeling right now. I will have to go out this afternoon having weeks ago said yes to a dinner invitation with two lovely women, however, if that were not the case, i would not even get out of my sleep clothes today. So you go ahead and prove Newton's theory for both of us today, and i will do it for you some other Sunday when you are busy busy busy in your garden and with your chickens and cooking and grandmothering and doing what you do.

    And by the way, we visited in my dreams last night. it was so real. We sat and chatted as women do while Owen and one of my nephews played and our husbands were somewhere outside and your son came by at one point it was all so comfortable and divine. It was on toward morning when I dreamed this so maybe it was when you went back to sleep. I hope your dreams were as peaceful and good as mine were.

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  3. I can relate as well. I often wake in the middle in the middle of the night and end up falling back to sleep for an hour or so before having to get up. It sucks big time. And I take sleep medicine!! I too wish I could stay in my pjs all day and watch mindless TV or read. Yet I know I have less than an hour to indulge myself before I have to get ready to meet a client for brunch who is visiting from London. That means I have to dress in other than my comfie sweats... You are not alone. S. Jo

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  4. O you're so not alone and it's good to know I'm not alone.
    I proper laughed (with relief, I think) when you said you almost passed out at the thought of going to a movie . . . I need milk and I can't/won't even walk one minute's walk to the local shop today, no way. I just can't do it. Mine is definitely a form of crazy and I will have to put on day clothes and go get milk tomorrow, somehow. Not yet though. Phew! x

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  5. The quest for sleep is mighty among so many. Even I, the champion sleeper, woke the other night at 1:30. Why? I had dreams that there were whales gathering at my boat dock. It was so windy and fierce (this part is reality) I could hear the waves crashing, and the shore is a mile away. unable to sleep, I read about a kidnapped old woman. I read about the fugitive terrorizing southern California. If one must awake in the middle of the night, I recommend more restful reading. It's such a basic need, sleep. Why can't we do it the way we gobble p-nut butter toast or insatiably finish that bottle of
    wine?

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  6. Ha!! I don't now what affliction I have, but it has sucked all the bone and gristle out of me leaving a limp blob.

    I just tried to open a little zip-lock bag of kitty treats for my cat and was too weak to get it open.

    Since I am still in my PJ's, I think I will do the sensible thing and just go and lie down somewhere. The couch is closer than the bed and my reclining chair is closer yet.

    Wake me next week.....or maybe the one after.

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  7. I'm sick as a dog adn not moving either. I think it's the flu. Unless the Lyme is back. (I did get bit again this summer. sigh)

    Rest up Ms Moon. Rest up.
    xo

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  8. NOLA- We should ALL be jealous.

    Angella- I too dream of people I know through this blog and through their blogs. They are always beautiful dreams and I love hearing that other people have dreamed of me. I take this as proof of our connection. I love you. Thank you. For everything.

    Sweet Jo- Yes. There is a completely different flavor to the insomnia if I know I have nothing I HAVE to do the next day. I can relax and be at peace with it. However, it is not always so. And that sucks.

    Bugerlugs- I get it. Even if the shop was a block away, I don't think I could do it. Maybe tomorrow. Yes. Definitely tomorrow. Right? Right?

    Denise- I need to go back to Alexander McCall's books before bedtime. I swear. It does really make a difference, what we read before we close our eyes.

    Lo- I have nothing more to say than "I love you." So yeah- I love you.

    Ms. Fleur- Probably the flu. Honey, I had dozens of tick bites last summer. So yes. Probably the flu. And I am so sorry.

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  9. I don't think it's all that unusual to have that kind of sleeping pattern. I do the same thing sometimes -- wake up around 3:30 and have trouble going back to sleep. I've found that by just lying in bed I can sink into a semi-sleeping state that's pretty restful, even if I'm not quite asleep.

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  10. Steve- Yep. I go into and out of sleep half the night and I do get frustrated by it. Which is ridiculous. I should just lay there and get whatever rest I can like you. But eventually, I get pissed about it and get up and go read for awhile. That helps.

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  11. I've had one good sleep in two weeks. I hope tonight is my night. Nothing is sweeter though than waking up in a quiet house and staring at the stars in the black sky. I'm going to miss my country home and it's lack of light pollution.

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Tell me, sweeties. Tell me what you think.