Sleep – Live & Learn

Riding Metro North. With Sunbeam.

June 16, 2017 by David Kanigan 37 Comments

You think you might give me a run for it, but you can’t touch me. You can’t come close, not remotely close to my Superiority. Top 1% of the 1% in…

Mood Swings.

Close your eyes and think bungee jumper, in an infinite loop, who’s boinging up and down in a zone which pulls up short of Bliss and a whisker from Abyss. Not too hot, but hot enough to pinch, and not too cold, but cold enough to feel frost bite, and once in a while tasting Despair, but never lallygagging in Euphoria.

It’s the 5:40 am train. I have the entire seat to myself on Metro North to NYC.

We’re operating on 4.5 hours of sleep, and hauling the wet slushy snow of accumulated sleep deprivation from the prior three days. Eyes heavy. Shoulders heavy. Words from the morning papers slur together. I set down the smartphone.

Tired. Sick and tired of being tired, and bored writing about tired. Tired³. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Inspire, Life, Photography, Quotes Tagged With: bliss, depression, Franz Kafka, insomnia, Inspirational, Kafka, memory, Mental health, Peace, Psychology, Quotes, Sleep, Story, Tired, Train

I imagine what it must be like to…stay still in the night

June 14, 2017 by David Kanigan 14 Comments

There are no birds or anything, or none that I can see. I imagine what it must be like to stay hidden, disappear in the dusky nothing and stay still in the night. It’s not sadness, though it may sound like it. I’m thinking about people and trees and how I wish I could be silent more, be more tree than anything else, less clumsy and loud, less crow, more cool white pine, and how it’s hard not to always want something else, not just to let the savage grass grow.

~ Ada Limón, “Mowing,” from Bright Dead Things: Poems

Photo: (via Hidden Sanctuary)

Filed Under: Inspire, Life, Photography, Poetry, Quotes Tagged With: Ada Limon, insomnia, Inspirational, night, Photography, Poem, Poetry, quiet, Quotes, silent, Sleep, still, tree

Karmar Repair Kit 1-4

May 28, 2017 by David Kanigan 28 Comments

sleep-dog-rest-cute

1. Get enough food to eat,
and eat it.

2. Find a place to sleep where it is quiet,
and sleep there.

3. Reduce intellectual and emotional noise
until you arrive at the silence of yourself,
and listen to it.

~ Richard Brautigan, “Karma Repair Kit 1-4″ from The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster

Source: Thank you Beth @ Alive on All Channels. Photo: via Your Eyes Blaze Out

Filed Under: Inspire, Photography, Poetry, Quotes Tagged With: Dog, inpsirational, karma, Pet, Poem, Poetry, quiet, recover, rest, Richard Brautigan, silence, Sleep, solitude

Monday Morning Wake-Up Call

May 1, 2017 by David Kanigan 30 Comments

Coffee anyone?

Photo: Patty Maher with Concentric Circles

Filed Under: Art, Life, Photography, Quotes Tagged With: coffee, coffee cup, Inspirational, Monday, morning, Photography, Quotes, Sleep, sleepy, Tired, Work

Swirl it around and find it

April 25, 2017 by David Kanigan 31 Comments

Set aside 10 minutes before you go to bed each night to write down three things that went really well that day. Next to each event answer the question, “Why did this good thing happen?”

Instead of focusing on life’s lows, which can increase the likelihood of depression, the exercise “turns your attention to the good things in life, so it changes what you attend to,” Dr. Martin E.P. Seligman said. “Consciousness is like your tongue: It swirls around in the mouth looking for a cavity, and when it finds it, you focus on it. Imagine if your tongue went looking for a beautiful, healthy tooth.” Polish it.

~ Julie Scelfo, excerpt from Get Happy: Four Well-Being Workouts (NY Times, April 5, 2017)

Photo: Pinterest

Filed Under: Inspire, Photography, Quotes Tagged With: Attitude, good, Inspirational, Julie Scelfo, Martin E.P. Seligman, positive, Psychology, Quotes, Sleep, Tongue, Tooth

Saturday Morning

April 8, 2017 by David Kanigan 22 Comments

In theory, for example, sleep is a negative thing, a mere cessation of life. But nothing will persuade me that sleep is not really quite positive, some mysterious pleasure which is too perfect to be remembered. It must be some drawing on our divine energies, some forgotten refreshment at the ancient fountains of life. If this is not so, why do we cling to sleep when we have already had enough of it; why does waking up always seem like descending from heaven upon earth? I believe that sleep is a sacrament; or, what is the same thing, a food.

— G.K. Chesterton, Lunacy and Letters

Quote: WhiskeyRiver. Art via Mennyfox55

Filed Under: Art, Inspire, Quotes Tagged With: Art, awaken, dream, G.K. Chesterton, heaven, Inspirational, Miracle, morning, Quotes, Saturday, Sleep, weekend

Saturday Morning

March 25, 2017 by David Kanigan 18 Comments

I see no pressing reason to get out of bed.
The lights are off
and it is raining
and the covers are the cave I dreamed of when I was a child.

– Barry Hannah, from Ray: A Novel

Notes: Photo: Dormír via Mennyfox55. Quote: Memory’s Landscape

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Barry Hannah, cave, child, childhood, Inspirational, memory, Photography, Poem, Quotes, Rain, raining, Saturday, Sleep, weekend

T.G.I.F.

March 10, 2017 by David Kanigan 21 Comments

Source: Swiss-miss

Filed Under: Inspire, Photography, Quotes Tagged With: adorable, Baby, cute, Friday, gif, Inspirational, Photography, Quote, rest, Sleep, T.G.I.F., Tired, weekend

Walking. Walking it down the cheek.

January 28, 2017 by David Kanigan 28 Comments

1:32 am.

Halldór’s nightlessness and insomnia in all directions.

A new routine, and I’ve grooved it. To bed early, wake early, read to exhaustion, and back to sleep until sunrise.

I flick on the iPad, illuminating the dark. I get after it. The Journal. The Times. Apple News. Blog posts. RSS feeds in Feedly. A few late night incoming emails. And then to dessert, a chapter or two on Kindle, half-way through Lebedev’s Oblivion. It’s 3:15 am, I’m turning pages on a title called Oblivion, now that’s something. You must sleep, or you will pay dearly.

I set the e-gear down, turn on the left side, and pull up the covers. Fragments of news, pages, posts, emails and today’s full day calendar are flitting by, churning, the mind workin’, workin’. Anxiety…A piece rises to the top. Begley: “A compulsion is at once psychological balm and curse, surface madness and profound relief…The ability of compulsive behaviors to quiet anxieties great and small is one of the greatest gifts our brains can give us.”

I pause, close my eyes, and marinate in this…if this is the greatest gift our brains can give us, I am fully gifted, fully loaded. FULL UP.

And, then, it stopped. The churning stopped. [Read more…]