As 60 rapidly approaches, it seems like a good thing to beef up my sleep hygiene. Well, I hadn’t heard of it before and perhaps you hadn’t either, but Tex is all over it, due to her life-long intimacy with restless leg syndrome. To have squeaky clean sleep hygiene, you’re supposed to be awake for 16 hours every day, no matter the kind of night you’ve had, like if the dog had the runs and you were out with him several times or if you keep jerking awake reliving bad moments, regrets, making dire conclusions. You must still get your ass out of bed at, say 6am, if, like moi, you want to tumble back into bed at around 10pm. If you stick to this routine, says Tex, your quality of sleep will get better and better.
This morning, I had to get up to pee at 4am. That is a rum time, so it is, just a little too close to dawn, and very difficult to fall back to sleep. Back in the day, I would go out and walk if that happened, lovely, actually, and I’ve seen foxes and even once a fishercat. Not happening these days, so I got back in, doubting I’d sleep anymore, despite the kitty snuggling and purring. My mind gets going and that’s that. Instead of running after it, though, this morning I tried to stay still.
Doze. Wake up.
Flitting from thought to prayer to memory to dipping down into dream, I was a bee, a butterfly, a bat. I was a pollinator, gathering here, moving there, never staying too long anywhere. Ideas, admonishments, shame, funny memories, the cat starts to wash, there’s a breeze, I’m dreaming bits and pieces of the book I’m reading (a bully at the door, my hair wet from an ocean swim). The room is lighter now and a morning feel replaces pre-dawn anxiety. It’s 6 and I’m up, the Carolina wren is singing, singing.
Do you have nights that pass this way? Days? A whole life? My therapist says this is a legit and perfectly fine human way to live, moving from interest to interest, wide open and fascinated by the wide open world of ideas, history, places, beauty, art, work, amazement. Sometimes I believe her, and sometimes I think, “What do I have to show for myself?” I certainly was never a company man, for instance, no trappings, no legacy that looks like a legacy in this Western industrial complex of money and greed.
Just dozing and waking up, over and over. Just human, just doing what humans do best: connecting to the wide open world.
Snickerdoodles, butterscotch beloveds, how do you connect with your sweet beating hearts full of femme love? To this world where we are right now with its troubles and with its joys, so full of all and everything? How are you connecting every day to your very human femme selves and out and beyond? How are you sleeping? And how are you managing to stay awake?
With love, so much love, from right here with you.
Every Monday, I offer a Meditation for Queer Femmes, in the spirit of my maternal grandmother, Mimi, who was fabulous, and from whom I inherited her Meditations for Women.
At the Total Femme, my intention is to post three times a week: Meditations for Queer Femmes on Monday, Pingy-Dingy Wednesday on Wednesday, and Femme Friday on Friday. Rather than play catch-up in a stressful fashion on those weeks when life prevents posting, I have decided to just move gaily forward: if I miss a Monday, the next post will be on Wednesday, and so on. Thank you, little bottle of antibiotics for inspiring me in this! (“…if it’s almost time for the next dose, skip the missed dose and continue your regular dosing schedule. Don’t take a double dose to make up for a missed one.”) And…as I go through graduate school and life life life, I will post as I am able, Mabel.
The Total Femme 