Sleep (Thoughts on Scandi Vacay, Part 2)

Here—even when I’m not plagued by the red-level jet lag I’m currently stuck with—my sleep goes through cycles of consistent bliss and then spells of choppy, mind-racing purgatory.

On my trip, sleep came any time I would allow. I dozed while sprawled out in grassy parks and on lilting trains, fading off to the comforting surround-sound buzz of languages I do not speak. I somehow fell into deep slumbers in corner-nook “family room” cots and curled up (since the length of my body wouldn’t physically fit) in a Copenhagen shed-cum-“bedroom” where many-legged creatures often visited me during the night without welcome. I didn’t seem to mind.

My brain was clear, and my days were full (not to mention gloriously drenched in sun and fresh air), and the sleep came & came, naturally refueling me in the most wonderful ways it should. And it felt great.

So how to achieve that rested clarity now that I’m home? Mission still in progress….Stay tuned.

In the meantime, I’m off to brew myself a caffeine pick-me-up. STAT.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cyclical

Sometimes the ‘circle of life’ concept seems especially evident, strikingly in-the-face. During high-frequency weeks like last week—when there seemed to be so much movement—the duality seems particularly ironic. A week during which I learned that four beautiful babies were born (nearly all of them healthy) almost in the same breath that I heard that one well-loved dog had to be put down, a lifetime friend’s aunt is terminally sick and my grandfather is “ready to die” (expressed in his own tired language, some of the toughest words to ever hear from a loved one). How does this happen? How can all this goodness and sadness—these beginnings and ends—coexist, bundled up into one package?

Last week it was raining, and at times it got me down; but today I already forget that fleeting melancholy that hovered and then passed. Today the sun shines through the cafe window so powerfully and radiantly that it seems to penetrate my body, warming me (filling me) to the very core. I dream of springtime adventures, summer celebrations; I see promise and kindness. At least in this moment, I remember it’s all rooted in love.

It comes, it goes, we fight it, we surf.  Keep on paddlin’, my friends. What a confusing but beautiful ride.