The shifting nightscape of my insomnia

I sometimes have insomnia, the kind where you find yourself wide awake at 2 am, mind racing.

The river of thoughts that rushes through me at these hours used to be frightening. I would torture myself with a full spectrum of what-ifs, which spun my nerves more tightly with each round, until it was all I could do to lie flat on the mattress. During the first years of our marriage, my poor husband would sigh as I slid out of bed and fled toward the study. There, I would turn on a light and read or write, and wait for a feeling of "normal" to pull me back into my life.

This habit of getting up and doing something became an easy habit for me, and one that only made my insomnia worse. If I could grab a last hour or two of sleep before I showered for work, I felt like I had "slept." To my surprise, I managed; in fact, I thrived during the day. The light itself was a tonic, a revelation that everything was okay. And in the middle of the daylight I marveled at how clean and safe everything seemed. It felt impossible that the shadowy loneliness of my wee hours could coexist with the happy days I experienced. I look back at that time, and I know that I must have propelled myself through the world on sheer nervous energy.

The funny thing is, I never dreaded going to sleep. I loved our room, our home, our cozy life. I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow, and my dreams were mostly rich and sweet. It was the slow, dark hours I hated, while I worried myself into a frenzy, my mind buzzing at the low frequency of the traffic on the interstate outside our loft.

In college, years before I had my own sleepless nights, I shared a dorm room with a girl who had chronic insomnia. She was the first person I'd ever met who talked about it and accepted it as a part of her life. When I woke to use the bathroom at the end of the hall, the half-light from our window revealed Lisa in the bed across the room, her eyes wide open and fixed on some spot on the ceiling. Almost always, she would roll over on her bed to greet me in strangely chipper yet sotto voice, "Hi Kirie!" Amazingly, sometimes she would start to engage me in conversation, as though I had just returned to the room after a class.

Lisa was probably only 20 years old, but she was as sensible as a real grownup. She never complained, but instead just took her insomnia on her own terms. Her solution: the radio on her Walkman. During those post-midnight hours, she tuned her radio to AM talk radio hosts, and they lulled her off to sleep just before light each day.

Knowing what I know now, I probably would have made a point to waken just to talk to her. The hardest part of my own insomnia was the loneliness. The otherworldly feeling of the wee hours comes not from the darkness so much as the absence of other people. No wonder Lisa welcomed my waking so eagerly. How I would have loved to wake my husband to talk with me on those interminable nights in the loft!

My insomnia pursued me through several moves, the arrival of our oldest daughter, and some practice with meditation. But, by some stroke of grace, once I got into my mid-thirties, the river of thoughts started bringing fewer and fewer anxieties with it as it coursed through my 2am bedroom. The darkness started feeling less oppressive, the dusky forms of our dresser or the curtains less threatening.

I stopped retreating to a lighted room, and resolved to instead feel the night settle around me each time I woke at odd hours. And on many of those nights, something resembling a calm came to me. Sometimes, I would even find that I could get myself back to sleep. By some small miracle, more and more of my nights were spent sleeping. Insomnia has now become only a sometime companion for me, and for that I am grateful.

When the formula in my life is right, the river of thoughts resumes its path through my night room. But bobbing along with it now are ideas, plans, things to puzzle through. When I wake up at 2 am these days, I am not buzzing with what-ifs. I am dreaming of projects, I am mind-writing, I am hearing music in my head. A few weeks ago I even caught myself practicing the fingerings for a song I'm learning on the piano. It is still otherworldly at night, but now the world feels charged with possibility instead of dread.

When I was younger, waking to the knowledge that I was the only one conscious left me gasping. And far from comforting, my husband's rhythmic breathing made me only all the more aware of how far away he was when sleeping, as though he had receded from me and into his dreams. My panic was practically tangible, like a whispered, frantic mantra of "I'm alone! I'm alone! I'm alone!"

Something has shifted since then, certainly. And perhaps it's because I'm distracted by my burgeoning list of projects, but I no longer feel so lonely when I'm up with my thoughts. Or perhaps I feel more secure in my marriage; fifteen years with my soulmate has taught me something more about trust, and I no longer feel he has fled from me in his sleep. The house itself offers its companionship. Far from frightening, the house at night envelops me, welcomes me, and nurtures some excellent ideas for all the things I enjoy making.

There is still the silence, but it is laced with the sounds from the woods outside our window, the foghorn on the bay, the thrum of the cats as the sleep on the bed. When I do want for a facsimile of human interaction, I find I crave voices. Last year, I realized I could, like my old college roommate, listen to stories through headphones, and I started using my ipod during my night wakings.

Hearing the whisper of a storyteller is intoxicating. I've found that with these voices in my ears, I'm soothed to sleep, but at the same time, inspired by the stories themselves. I've been discovering an unexpected energy in the spoken word, an energy that carries over into my perceptions of the next day. And, most surprising, I have actually started relishing my sleepless hours as quiet opportunities to just listen and dream my waking dreams.

The Tale of Mr. Mouse, part 2

The Mr. Mouse story continues...here is the first part, if you missed it.

Anita was breathless from screaming. She caught her breath and looked furtively behind her toward the house. Had anyone seen her? Heard her? She was humiliated at such a reaction. First, because Martha would be disappointed in her--"Really, Anita. Such drah-ma." And also because, as unrealistic as it was, Anita felt responsible for keeping all of the house tidy and orderly, including these bins. It was a poor reflection on her as a housekeeper to have a mouse infestation. She vowed to herself to get rid of the problem before Martha found out about it. So Anita indulged her stubborn side by standing perfectly still on the path in front of the bin, her baking tray poised and ready to clobber any rodent making a run for it.

If her heart hadn't been pounding so hard in her ears, Anita might have heard the rushed breathing of Mr. Mouse as he struggled to gain composure. Calm, he thought. Calm. Smell the food, breathe the air.  If he could only lie down in his bed again, he promised, he would never, ever invade the humans' garbage again. Through the slats, he could just see the tips of Anita's sensible shoes on the path. His little heart beat mightily in his chest and he wondered if he would have the chance to keep that promise.

Anita stood still for 15 minutes while her adrenaline rush subsided. Deciding she didn't want another face-to-face confrontation with the furry creature--had it been a rat, God forbid?--she headed toward the house, tray swinging, her head down with determination.

As Anita retreated, Mr. Mouse felt relief and then profound exhaustion. It was nearing sunset, as far as he could tell, and his wobbly legs reminded him that he simply couldn't cross the yard again.  The garbage bin was to be his bed tonight, like it or not.  

He rustled around in the heap and pulled a few cupcake wrappers free.  Laying them underneath him as a relatively neat little mat, he gave into his wobbly legs and curled into a ball.  As he drifted to sleep, his thoughts ranged from images of Anita's square-toed shoes, to image of his baby sister swaddled in flannel, to oozing pools of pink frosting, to strange, squarish forms that floated in the sky and blotted out the sun.   He woke several hours later to the hollow sound of his old companion (but not friend), the short-eared owl, and he realized that he was hungry.  And for once, food was plentiful.  

Though the cupcakes had lost some of their appeal for having slid into the mess of other garbage, they were soft and fragrant and sticky.  His paws were still covered in icing, in fact, and there were bits of cake stuck to his left haunch.  A bath, he decided, would be a good start to his meal.  When he was done, he was clean, and now hungrier than ever.  Martha's cupcakes were legendary for a reason, and once he started, he couldn't stop himself.   His promise to leave human garbage alone notwithstanding, he dug into the remains of coffee cake, and cupcakes by the dozen, until his belly was so full he was certain he wouldn't fit through the slats to leave in the morning.   Exhausted and almost sick with sugar, he fell into a deep, dreamless sleep for the rest of the night.  

Anita, for her part, had been busy for hours in the night as well.  She had spent hours touring the grounds with dozens of mousetraps.  By the time she went to bed, she had armed almost every place conceivable:  the pantry, the basement, the attic, the garage, the stables, the greenhouse, the wine cellar, the root cellar, and the chicken coop.   All except the garbage bins.  She was embarrassed about it, but she was afraid to go out there in the dark, worried that that creature might run out from between the slats, perhaps across her foot this time.  It gave her the shivers just thinking about it.   That trap could wait for daylight.  She fell into a fitful sleep, full of strange dreams of a parade of cupcake floats and squealing rodents.   

The Tale of Mr. Mouse, part 1

I am still at work finishing Mrs. Mouse. She is a soft brown velveteen, and she's nice to hold. She's also patient. For the past three nights I've managed to get out my sewing kit, but not I've not actually sewn her. She just sits contentedly in my hand while I've gotten caught up on past episodes of Lost.

It looks as though she might be staying here for awhile. She and Mr. Mouse have definitely become good friends.

I don't believe I've told you much about him yet.
Mr. Mouse has been around our home for almost 3 years now. He manifested after Ada and I started talking about him in stories...he just showed up one day in full form. (Well, he showed up without a leg--Ada couldn't wait to play with him until I was done sewing.)

He has a strange history, this mouse. You see, as the story goes, he belongs to Martha Stewart. Yes, that one. When she was four years old, Ada had a fascination with Martha, from her magazines and her show. Through that, Martha somehow entered our story of a mouse. Before we knew it, there were other important characters finding their way into the bedtime stories I'd spin, and soon, there was a whole fleshed-out universe of Martha, her compatriots, and Mr. Mouse.

Would you like to hear how Mr. Mouse arrived in Martha's life?




Mr. Mouse used to live in the woods behind Martha Stewart's house. He lived in a hollowed out stump on the edge of the forest. He lived alone, and he spent a good deal of his time making his house comfy with castoffs--winecorks for chairs, bits of old flannel for blankets, a wobbly table made out of a champagne cap. The pride of his little house was the spiral stair he had created along the wall by notching and chewing spaces in the rotting wood. It took him ages, but when he was done, the steps spanned more than half the house, circling up and around to the splintery wood outcropping that served as his bedroom. He loved to trot up the stairs, nestle into bed, and dream of making things and going places.

On a particularly damp and blustery afternoon in February, Mr. Mouse caught the scent of cupcake on the air. It was strong enough to wake him from a sound sleep, and he scampered down the stairs to the doorway to get a better read on it. He took a few steps outside and debated facing the threat of an open yard to find the source of that smell. In the spring, especially, hungry hawks made the rounds over grassy spaces, looking for food. Mr. Mouse didn't want to end up taking an unexpected flight in the talons of a starving bird. But that day, he wanted cake more than he wanted safety. Taking a deep breath, he ran for it.

Mr. Mouse didn't know it at the time, but it would be worth the trip. Martha and her housekeeper, Anita, had been baking cupcakes for hours. Martha's original plan had been to bake 200 cupcakes cupcakes for the staff, crew, and audience of her television show. She liked to use her own kitchen; it was so much more relaxing than her television studio. Unfortunately, the cupcakes weren't working out. The baby pink sugarpaste hearts kept sliding off the too-loose swiss meringue frosting. It just wouldn't do. So, out to the trash heap with the cupcakes, all 200. (Well, almost 200. Anita secreted away a stash to share with her friends after work.) Mr. Mouse would have 189 cupcakes for himself, if he made the trip.

At top speed, Mr. Mouse could cross from the woods to the the trashheap in less than 10 minutes. He'd been up late the night before, though, scratching a pattern on the wall of his bedroom, trying to recreate the image of his brothers and sisters nestled in their childhood den. He loved to draw, but the scratches never came out as well on the bark as they did in his mind. Frustrated, he'd finally fallen asleep sometime after the short-eared owl had stopped shouting its lonely song.

In any case, today he was overtired, and slow. The grass was wet, but not yet the soft damp of spring. Instead it was old winter grass, yellowed and scratchy, and it resisted him. Between the thickets of grass were patches of ice, and big lumps of earth that the skunks had overturned while looking for grubs. Here and there were also scattered twigs and a few large branches that a recent windstorm had strewn about. Each of these things posed an obstacle for a little mouse. Though his nose implored him to run, his little legs were weak, and he slowed to a walk. In doing so, he looked up, and saw, for the first time ever, Martha's house.

Strange how we don't look up. You can go through your daily life never noticing the tops of the trees, or where the telephone wires intersect, or the shape of the spaces in the sky through the winter branches. For his part, Mr. Mouse had never looked much past the tops of the grass blades, as he usually took this path to the garbage at night, in a dead run.

There, looming god-like above him, was Martha Stewart's sprawling home. He gave a start when he saw it, and literally stopped in his tracks. While he lived near humans, he didn't live among them. He was a woodland mouse, not a house mouse. He ate humans' garbage, and was a fine connoisseur of their cast-off food (sweets and fried things being favorites), but he didn't know about their homes. Martha Stewart's home filled him with a mix of fear and curiosity. Who know there could be something so BIG, so angular and imposing? Looking at it so intently on that cloudy day, Mr. Mouse's vision got a bit blurry, and the house seemed to thrum with energy. What was it?

As Mr. Mouse was contemplating the foreignness of the house, Anita was crossing the yard with the last tray of cupcake discards. She hated to toss them, but she couldn't save all of them, either. First, Martha wouldn't have it. Secondly, she snuck enough treats each day that her pants now needed elastic waists, a shameful fact she'd finally admitted to herself in December.

As Martha had instructed, Anita had not bagged the cupcakes for the trash. Instead, she carried them, tray by burgeoning tray to the third bin in the waste area. Martha had devised three categories for non-recyclable trash, and they were organized in much the same way all things "Martha" were organized--with precision and labels. Set squarely into huge beds of pebbles were three slatted box containers, each weathered entirely grey except for its shiny chrome label. The first was sensibly labeled "Compost," and was filled purely compostable-material such as vegetable peels and coffee grounds. The second bin was for real garbage (tissues, #5 plastics, and other unmentionables). The third and largest bin was ambiguously labeled "Items that might be compostable." Anita visited this bin the most, for reasons not unlike today's cupcake fiasco. With surprising deftness, in one swift move she hefted the lid of the bin and the tray, dumping the last of the cupcakes. They tumbled down the heap to join the remains of failed coffee cake, soggy teabags, and spoiled pizza dough. She was just turning away to head back to the house when Mr. Mouse streaked past her foot and dove between the slats and into the mess.

Anita screamed. As her tray clattered to the stone path, Mr. Mouse dug faster than he thought possible, through a flurry of cake and goopy icing, furiously moving his feet until he could get a foothold. A new character had entered each of their worlds, though neither of them knew it yet.