image courtesy of youngwivestales.wordpress.com
“He would lie in the bed and finally, with daylight, he would go to sleep. After all, he said to himself, it is probably only insomnia. Many must have it.”
― Ernest Hemingway, A Clean Well Lighted Place
There is something so frustrating about not being able to go to sleep, or perhaps worse, continually waking after falling asleep. Either one will leave you feeling tired and irritable the next morning and there is nothing known (not that I know) which can give you back the lost hours of sleep. I have counted sheep and found it totally irritating. I have warmed milk and sipped it. The effort of getting up and warming it has seemed to wake me even further. I have decided to get up and read for a while until my eyes are heavy enough to close. Feels successful until you lay down again and those eyes which are burning to remain closed and let you sleep, pop open once more. In fact, frustration really doesn’t do the feeling justice.
The irony is, there isn’t always a reason for it happening. Sometimes there will be a thorny problem which you cannot let go of and it runs around your brain seeking a way out. If only a door could be found it would be a wonderful way to exorcise that scenario! However, this time there was a quite reasonable explanation. Just as I was drifting off to sleep I heard what sounded like a loud crash, something rather substantial being broken, outside near the patio.
image courtesy of noaz.blogspot.com
A search didn’t reveal too much, the lights don’t really cover the area very well. All appeared to be okay and I couldn’t see any stray cats, dogs or possums hiding in the corners, nor anything out-of-place. Still, I could hear the possums cavorting across the roof the next time I laid down and had almost fallen asleep. Hmm – the likely culprits? I love the little things, okay, perhaps not so little, and definitely not to be tangled with if you don’t want to be scratched or bitten, but cute all the same. They sounded, at times, like a herd of rampaging bull elephants charging over the roof.
We have tried to keep the branches far enough away from the roof so they can’t easily get across, and have had a fair degree of success until last night. Obviously the foliage grew faster than our vigilance of the garden. Since they were having fun and I was well and truly awake I decided I would try to get a nice photo of them. Further frustration ensued. Even twisting myself into a human pretzel I couldn’t see over the roof to get a clear sight of them. When they escaped into the trees they were too far away with my puny torch to light up the area where they were. I could see them but the light simply wasn’t enough for the camera. So they sat there ‘laughing at me’.
image courtesy of timpanogos.wordpress.com
So, here I sit, wide awake, temporarily, since I can feel my energy levels finally running on empty, finishing my little tale of woe of broken sleep. I would be delighted to watch possums or any other nighttime creature – before I go to bed! We will have to fix the branches which allow them to gain access to the roof. I really don’t want them in the roof, or breaking the tiles, especially if we have rain forecast, as we currently do. (Murphy’s Law). Now that I think about it, – the brain is slowing down so sleep must be near – I wouldn’t be too keen on bats visiting me during the night either. I’m not an avid bat fan even if I do like vampire movies.
So, since the ‘sun’ is up and the possums have retired, I’m heading to the land of nod for a few hours of well deserved sleep. Despite feeling tired I wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s a blessing seeing the animals around the property, and we have been blessed with a wide assortment of wildlife from birds, possums, owls, to a very quiet carpet snake. Fortunately for me, he was much smaller than my friends resident carpet snake, who, after what may well have been a possum dinner, was so huge I doubt he could have retired to her ceiling where he normally lives. I guess my luck was running good there!
So I hope all the slumberers from my neck of the world had a restful night and I wish all those on the other side of the world a restful night to come. Goodnight !
image courtesy of sleep.lovetoknow.com
“Arousing from the most profound of slumbers, we break the gossamer web of some dream. Yet in a second afterward, (so frail may that web have been) we remember not that we have dreamed.”
Owls and Orchids 