The House of the Rising Sun
My sleep patterns leave a lot to be desired. I am blessed at the age of 67 to be without significant maladies. I take medication for high blood pressure, but they seem to work well in keeping me at a BP level that is normal and apparently without major health complications. I do not suffer from reflux or any of the other annoying gastrointestinal problems that often plague aging Boomers. That is probably less due to keeping to a prudent diet (which I do not) and more about that certain lap-band that I had installed around the entrance to my stomach fourteen years ago. That little bugger that they really aren’t even using or installing anymore has worked well in curtailing my eating sufficiently that I have kept off all of the weight I lost back then and yet again a bit more since moving out to this hilltop. I should mention that I sleep with a CPAP (Continuous Positive Air Pressure) machine and have for 27 or so years. Back then I was not diagnosed with sleep apnea, but did have one helluva snoring problem that disturbed my sleep. The CPAP has cured the snoring for the most part and I have adjusted to life with a CPAP and sleep quite soundly with it. Luckily for me and others (they say up to 40% of the aging male population needs and/or uses a CPAP), CPAP technology has improved greatly and the machines are smarter and quieter with humidifiers and better and better nasal attachments that are quite a bit more comfortable than they used to be. I do not seem to have a frequent bladder issue, so I can’t blame bathroom breaks as my cause of sleeplessness. So, what is the cause of my sleep issues? Well, I would summarize them by saying muscle soreness from staying in a prone position too long.
That’s right, I, like most animals, get stiff from lying still. The stiffness can be in the back, neck or shoulders. I am a side-sleeper, so my morning unwind usually involves lots of arm/shoulder/neck stretching. The dryness of this hilltop is such that I need to be careful to hydrate sufficiently before bed or I can cramp up in my legs (hamstrings mostly). But these are all normal issues for a man of my age according to what I read. It’s not that I want to luxuriate in ten-hour sleep sessions, that sounds painful in a muscle-ache way. I just want to get a sound seven hours and I will be happy. In a perfect world, I would go to bed to the dulcet sounds of Brian Williams summarizing the news of the day for me (I really do like Brian Williams for his light touch and excellent impromptu humor), and then arise at 6:30am fully rested. If my CPAP tells me I have had less than six hours I worry and try to take a nap or at least a rest in the afternoon. But if I get somewhere north of six hours, I figure I’m OK for the day and only lie down if the laziness of the day moves me to do so.
This leads me to my current reality, which is that I see way more sunrises than I need to from this hilltop. I will admit to preferring sunrises to sunsets. Don’t get me wrong, the sunsets over the Pacific from this hilltop are nothing short of spectacular. Just last night, Kim admonished me again for not looking enough at the amazing colors in the western sky as the sun dipped below the horizon some forty or so miles out over the ocean (I have done the celestial math as to how far I can see out over the ocean from the 1.630 foot ever action we enjoy). The reason I prefer sunrises is simply an issue of temperature. It is scorching hot (call it 90 degrees, so not Phoenix of Las Vegas hot, but still hotter than is pleasant) at the end of the day and the setting sun always seems so unfriendly and strident. By comparison, the sunrise comes on the heels of a cooling night of low 60’s temperature and seems friendly and warming to my slightly aching shoulders and hip joints.
Since this really is a hilltop that I live on, I look downhill in every direction, which often reminds me of how wise the original builders of this house were some twenty-five years ago when this little enclave of residences were first established. I am using my iPhone compass now to determine just how close to true East the sun is rising from. It seems to be an almost perfect Easterly direction from where I sit (technically 356 degrees North at 33 12’32” N 117 7’11” W). From my office desk I have three windows on there sides of me (another nice design feature in this office addition made by the last owners of this house about fifteen years ago). I look straight ahead due North. I can glance West over the distant ocean with its morning marine layer, which will burn off soon. And then, I can look East over my cactus knoll towards Mount Palomar and the lowest end of the San Jacinto and Santa Rosa mountain ranges that separate me from Palm Springs and the Mojave Desert.
They say that San Diego has more perfect weather than almost any spot in the U.S. It is listed as one of the dozen most perfect weather spots year-round. I’m sure they do not want to be so presumptuous as to force rank them further since there is some room for personal preference. With an average high of 70 and low of 58, the only one of the top dozen spots that can compete with that range is Santa Barbara with 70/53. Honolulu with 84/71 seems too warm, same as Orlando with 82/64 and Tacoma and Santa Fe with 62/45 and 65/35 respectively seem a bit too cool. Methinks that San Diego owns the Goldilocks spot on the weather charts. And within San Diego, I am a bigger fan of the North County area where we live, which is a tad dryer and neither too close to the ocean air nor too hot in the inland valleys. In other words, just right in the just right zone.
Most people remember a place based on its sunsets, especially our here in the West, but I will forever think of this hilltop as home of the house of the rising sun (with all due respect to The Animals and their 1964 hit song that speaks to the brothel in New Orleans). The morning sunlight is so crisp and clear on most days. There are plenty of days when the mist and fog lingers in the ravines and valley and then slowly disperses as the sun arms the valleys, but this fine August morning has none of that and the 0-2% humidity level predicted for the next ten days or more make it likely that I will see this exact same sunrise over and over again. I used to think that sunshine every day was boring, but now I recognize that as a ruse my mind was playing on me to get me to feel better about strapping on my armor for another round of work back in New York City. Now I am genuinely pleased when I see the weather app long-range chart showing sunny and dry as far as the eye can see. A short break for some rain if fine, but having lived in the tropics long enough to understand the regularity of a short shower every afternoon, I’m much happier being bored with the sunshine than I am being tired of the tropical dampness, desecrated in the desert or frozen in the slip and fall off the Northeast.
I will continue to work on my sleep patterns to get my daily seven, but I am certain that being a morning person by nature, I will always focus my day around the morning and can think of no better place to do it than my personal house of the rising sun.