itchy
It’s Sunday. I’m up and exhausted. What is it that kept me awake most of the night? Is it the Black full moon? The chilli poached salmon? The creatine powder, a new supplement? All three or something else?
Photo credit: Noemia Prada on Instagram
Step back with me to the nightmare that was last night …or not, if you have your own sleep issues, perhaps better to let this read go. I forgive you.
I’ve read my book, A Little Life, but only for 20 minutes, it’s a tome suggested by a new local book club I’ve joined and it’s a challenge. As I lie in bed my body feels peeled back like an onion with the writhing, wriggling, teeming mass of cell ‘I am’s’ laid raw and exposed to replicate and restore themselves on the night shift. From the first breath I took as a new infant when some attendant midwife declares to my mother ‘it’s a girl Mrs Podlesak’ to the certain final ‘I am no more’, I am entirely composed of a mess of words strung together like a DNA strand and they nighttime hustle. My ‘I ams’ crowd and spill over one another, fighting to be heard. The electricity of my body fizzes and sparks, unpredictably shooting out a stab of pain in a finger, a toe, my palm. Everything itches like a thousand tiny ants running a path from scalp to toe.
My eyes water, I think because they’re tired and want to be asleep instead of just closed against the room. I wipe away the water. As individuals make an appearance in my thought train, I shoot an arrow prayer for them. In the black space of the bedroom, I bump up against God. We wrestle and I know, like Jacob, I will be the one who limps away from this.
I’m hungry and the idea of warm milk and a digestive seems very pleasing. Then I think of real hunger… of the Gazan mother nursing her malnourished child who whimpers the pain of starvation through another long night. It bites into and eats her up, but she would prefer this grievous sound to silence, for it means life is still present. I will not satisfy my own pretense at hunger with comfort. Impotent in any action to change what happens to them, I can, though, stand with through the night and speak to my God, any God, in supplication for peace. Knowing the morning will bring the same cruelties for them and mine will bring tiredness.
I am on my back, Savasanah, I try every tool in my box to settle the twitchiness. Legs up the wall or limbs draped out of the bed. Arms overhead. Tolle breath practice. Spira meditation. Two paracetamol. These deliver a 30 minute stillness, I’m momentarily delighted and then I’m back to fidgeting, itching, restless. Nothing works. It seems I am a jack of all trades and master of none. My tool box is utterly useless.
I think of family, of friends, of sick people I know and fire off more prayers. This happens at least once a month, so I do wonder if the full moon plays some part in the torment? Or is it the chilli salmon, I vow to myself not to buy this again or ever serve it up for dinner.
My clean pyjamas are making me hot, perhaps it’s too soon for long sleeves … the window is closed, but the room is cool. At ten to three I am as irritated by wakefulness as I am the fizz bang body I inhabit. I take a drink of water. My mind returns again to Palestine. We had a 36 hour water problem here recently. There was none, due to a burst water main. An internal claustrophobia arose at the thought of no water. A sort of panic. The authorities eventually supplied us with bottled water in quantity. An image I saw on Instagram of a child in Gaza catching water droplets in her mouth from off the side of a truck fills my aching head. The night drags on and by four thirty, I sense that perhaps there is a small settling down. Sleep comes. Awake again at six thirty, resentful and grateful at the same time. Thank you for life. Thank you for breath. Thank you for existence. Thank you. Now let me sleep some more… snoozing till eight and I decide writing this down is my best medicine. Downstairs and tea times tw
Is my conscience my itch? Is it possible to sleep in peace while the world rages? We all swore we’d never allow this kind of thing to happen again and yet we are… I have no answer or solution, but I wish it would stop. Outside the sun shines on our English country garden, the season is gently turning its face towards Autumn, birdsong not drones fill the air. It’s a beautiful day. Apples ripen and I feel the safety of the world I’ve been lucky enough to be born into. BB and I discuss what we’ll have for breakfast, I think of my sparkling sun-filled outdoor shower and bless the water. It will wake me. Feel free to comment on your own night horrors or on anything….I wish you a beautiful day and a peaceful night. Till the next time…
A
