I can't sleep…
We lived in our bodies as in a constant state of emergency. We wore them out trying to either satisfy or exhaust them. We never succeeded in losing ourselves in sleep or pleasure. We were vigilant and wakeful. We always knew what time it was. We were forever trying to fill or close some gap.
— Rachel Cusk, Parade: A Novel (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, June 18, 2024)
And often, to fall asleep, I think of a great white bird. It is bigger than an airplane, its wings are wide and strong. I think that I am lying nestled in the hollow between one of the wings and the gentle great back, and I feel the wings very slowly lifting and falling as the bird carries me.
And on the back of this great white bird, with wise dark eyes and a noble long bill, I fly over the country. The feathers of the bird are downy, and keep me warm and dry. And below us the mountains and the rivers and oceans stretch along endlessly. There is a green, rolling patchwork of farms. And the wings beat beneath me.
Notes:
Rest…
leave behind fear, hope, anger, spilled milk.
Take silence only.
Sky, wind. Sunrise after the rain.
Forget the rest.
Sleep, Harris.
Rest from yourself.
— Reverend West (Vondie Curtis-Hall), Raymond & Ray (Apple TV+, 2022)
2:30 a.m. Here we go again.
I’m up. Three days, back to back to back, at this God-awful hour. Three days, standing in bare feet on cool grass, with my camera pointed up, trying to still my hands, trying to still my arms, just trying Still everything damn it, from the shakes — and then, if that’s not enough — my eyes are tracking the moon, aka a bright, yellow blob that is spastically jumping up and down in my viewfinder. So, now I have the shakes and vertigo. Has to be the lack of sleep. Has to be.
Rattled, I walk to the driveway, slowly, feeling my way through the dark, with jagged stones piercing the souls of my feet. Need to resurface this damn driveway.
I lay my arms on the roof of the car, and point upward. Why 2:30 a.m., and not 1:30, or 3:30, or even 5 am, like at least 10% of Humans? God, again, only knows, if there is a God. And I’m thinking maybe there is a God, because Someone wants me up to see Something at this hour.
I look back into the viewfinder. Sh*t. This isn’t working.
I place the camera down on the roof of the car, and let my arms rest. Sky is clear. No risk of missing the shot with cloud cover. Take a minute, re-group and go at it again.
I look up and down the street. No one else is out in their Jockey sleep shorts, their short-sleeved, white V-Neck, lurking around in bare feet waiting for their hands to stop trembling like a frightened kitten.
I lift my palms and look. Everything appears to be normal, on the surface.
I take a moment to re-check camera settings. Then I move to the lens settings. And here I find that I somehow turned off the automatic image stabilizer. Ha! It’s not me. I just knew it couldn’t have been me.
I snug up tight to the car, the smooth steel, cool against my chest. With the ship now anchored, I lift the camera and point. And, there, there She is, in all of her Glory.
So there is a God.
Just has to be.
Sitting @ Canon in Ōita, Japan.
Photo – Waning Gibbous Moon (57%). 2:38 a.m. August 19, 2022. 63° F. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT. More photos from this morning here.
No, it’s not my morning walk @ Daybreak @ Cove Island Park. Not yet 831 consecutive days, like in a row. It’s too damn early for that. 3 hours and 12 minutes before sunrise, to be precise. And here we are. As Ocean Vuong states in On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous: “Let me begin again.”
I thought about that for a moment. “Let me begin again?” or, “Here we go again?”
2:36 a.m. I snatch the iPhone and check Sleep data: 5 consecutive days < 4 hours sleep. I check the Dark Sky app: Clear skies.
Sully pauses his snoring to open an eyelid. His big brown eye looking through me: What is wrong with you Man? He turns his head, and falls back asleep.
I slip out of bed, head downstairs, my bare feet pattering on the hard wood floors, careful not to trip over myself in the darkness. I step outside, scanning the skies. There you are. Waiting for me.
It’s quiet. No Metro-North train whistles in the distance, the last train passing an hour ago. No dogs barking. No critters scurrying in the shrubs. Just me, and the cool grass under my toes, and my mind whirring.