Skip to main content

It has been a while since I wrote my last post. Truthfully, I began to feel it was a somewhat narcissistic endeavor, as I imagine only a relative few ever read these words. Still, I write, not because I anticipate an audience, but simply because writing is in my nature.
I have been suffering from a devastating case of sleep deprivation. Our Bodhi sunshine recently swore off prolonged periods of rest and has consequently relegated my beta waves to the distant past. I brought him to the doctor, fearing that he was suffering from a strange and dangerous virus that caused children to waken every thirty minutes. We spent a few restless minutes, closeted in an examining room lined with monkeys- stuffed, painted and photographed- preparing for the worst. The doctor offered an indulgent and slightly patronizing smile and said that Bodhi was most likely suffering from social dependent sleep disruption (or something to that effect). It sounded ominous but not lethal. She went on to tell me that some very social children become reliant on social interaction to the extent that their sleep is disrupted. Unfortunately this is more often true of children who co-sleep with their parents and generally worsens, rather than improves, unless measures are taken to encourage the nocturnal socialite to self-soothe and sleep independently. Feeling chagrined and carrying a grinning Bodhi on my hip, I returned home.
Bodhi has 'slept' in his crib for 4 nights now and I have begun a nightly regime of sleep walking to and from his room with uncomfortable frequency. He seems to be progressing incrementally and I look forward to REM's sometime within the decade. As for work, it is wonderful. I love my job, my co-workers and my students. Shane is a marvelous support through it all. He tries to get out of bed and help with Owen each night. His response to sleep deprivation is to sleep so deeply that he is impermeable to waking. As for me, I am exhausted, but happy and that is worth every sleepless night.

Comments

china cat said…
i am reading your blog - just so you know. i wish i was a small one in that classroom. i was thinking the other day - it takes a lot of years for us to enculturate our little ones into this society. at least 13 years. and what exactly are they interested in us becoming? i would much rather be painting my feet blue too.
September 22, 2007 at 9:59 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

tree digging

Yes, I know it doesn't look like much.  It was only about 5 inches in diameter and 8 feet tall.  The root ball was no more than 3 feet deep.  But it was a sweet red-bud tree that we planted the year Bodhi was born, his placenta was buried in it's roots and like many of the trees in our neighborhood, it died (see this post to understand why) . I can't say that I mourned its death in a tangible way, rather it produced in me a sort of unnameable melancholy.  I am a woman who loves the spring.  I nearly live for it.  When the first signs of life emerge like a haze of hope, I drink in green with the passion of a desert crawling woman sipping at an oasis.  I gorge.  This year has been hard.  Our neighborhood isn't leafing out in native splendor, instead the tired trees seem to begrudge the effort, only offering a tender shoot or bud occasionally.  The north side of many trees appear to have given up all together, too tired after a long winter...
2 comments
Read more

Coraggio

When everything looks bleak and the darkness cramps against the cold, it takes courage to simply look out from imagined isolation toward the wide horizon of beauty available in every moment.  It takes courage to lean into the sea of life and trust the tide. When weary limbs no longer support us, it takes courage to trust our inner buoyancy and float.  It takes courage, in the face of darkness, to remember the light and sit in all our apparent blindness and listen, silently, to the still, small whisper within.  It takes courage, in that dark hour, when nothing else remains.  Eyes closed.  Eyes opened.  A glimpse, a memory, a fleeting vision of a light so bright it blurs the borders of things seen and things perceived into a comprehensive wholeness of being.  It takes courage.
4 comments
Read more

grief

Grief is defined as a deep or intense sorrow. I have been thinking a lot about grief, about it's wide and sticky reach, about the watery quality of it's absorption and the agonizing effort of swimming to shore. Intense sorrow happens. It is a part of life. Yet we press against it. We try to eradicate it. How? We encapsulate our grief in a story, thus effectively removing us from the immediacy of the pain. The mind promises salvation and begins to tell a story, over and over and over. We listen to the inner ramblings, the constant diatribe, the neurotic attempt to avoid the experience. When someone is hurting we listen to their story, we talk about it, we recount our own story, but we certainly don't jump in the waters of sadness, instead we sit on the bank of our familiar longing. Once, when I was floundering in deep grief, my youngest brother knelt next to me and held me for over an hour. He didn't speak. He didn't commiserate. He just jumped in the ...
4 comments
Read more