Up at Night

 Up at Night

          It’s 3:30am and do you know where your mind has wandered off to?  There is nothing so frustrating as insomnia.  The older we get, the more we come to realize that the simplest of bodily functions are the ones that give us the most peace and happiness.  Few things that I want to discuss in a story do this more than a good night’s sleep.  I characterize a good night’s sleep based on what my online CPAP app tells me about my sleep patterns.  It wants me to get seven hours of sleep.  Not six and not so much more than seven to eight.  Doing less messes you up for the day and doing more messes you up over the next few days by throwing you off. 

          As we all know, the mind is what most often prevents us from sleeping well.  The worst are worries, but they are closely followed by general clutter, as in things that you must do soon and thus have to organize in your head.  I tend to fall asleep quickly.  I settle down and soothe fast and sleepiness overtakes me most often with ease.  I have my exceptions when something arouses or troubles me right before bedtime.  But mostly I categorize myself as an easy-to-sleep person.  After I get about four hours of sleep and have satisfied the basic bodily requirement for rest, that is when I have my problem if I’m going to have one.  I go from being a deep sleeper to a light sleeper around that time and am prone to noises or light commotion (Kim stirring and whatnot).  If I have things on my mind, that is when I have a problem getting them out of my head and I pretty much must get out of bed.

          I find one of the keys is to try not turning on a light.  That gives me the best odds of getting past the commotion and falling back to sleep.  Sometimes if I go read something, I get sleepy and am back in bed before I know it.  I never feel compelled to eat or drink at night (which is lucky because nothing says wake up like ingesting something).  Other times, I am just up and that is all there is to it.

          Being a morning person by nature, if something catches my fancy in the middle of the night when I awake, I will tend to run with it.  That is where I am tonight.  Its not quite 5am and I’ve been up since 2:30am.  I have used the time to clean out my email inbox.  That consists of reading all the stories behind the Financial Times headline email.  That sort of deep dive into the world news is very valuable to me occasionally, both for my general awareness and for my ideation for my daily stories.  Nothing generates more stories for me, in all directions and in combination with one another, than digging into current events.  The FT has a good array of global perspectives to keep me intrigued.

          The other thing I have just done is to read a business plan that my son-in-law has written for his new business (mentioned in my blog a few days ago).  He wants my input, presumably as both a venture capitalist and as a writer.  Maybe it’s the clarity of the night (my mind is crystal clear and very fresh tonight for some reason), but I think I finally get the vision of his business proposition.  I was uber-impressed by his narrative and the compelling nature of his idea.  I’ve been listening to bits and pieces of this idea for some time, but it has all sounded new-age and foreign to me for the most part. Tonight, I have had the time to read it carefully, appreciate it in a non-rushed, non-skimmed way, and get my head around the vision.  It has blown me away as I sit here in the dark, pondering why I am not in the least bit getting sleepy and I start the 5am run-up to Morning Joe at 6am.  Sometimes my mind works best under these unusual circumstances.  I’ve never been a notepad-on-the-bed-stand sort of guy, but I think that’s the sort of night I am having tonight.

          I notice that my legs are jiggling as I type, which means that I have excess energy for some reason.  That’s not an unusual phenomenon for me (Kim is always placing a hand on my knee to make me aware of my jiggling legs).  The human body can be a funny thing.  I don’t understand why Kim fidgets in bed to get comfortable at night, since I just get in and stay put for the most part.  I guess it all evens out in the end.  Everybody jiggles away their excess energy in one way or another.

          I know that tonight I am thinking of all the things I must do in the next four or five days as we wrap-up our New York residence and finish our extended move to San Diego.  I have lunches and dinners with colleagues, friends and family.  I will run between my apartment, my office and midtown more than is practical, but that’s OK.  It will all be over soon enough.  Strangely enough, we are moving offices (consolidating down into smaller space) at the same time as Kim and I are packing the apartment for the moving guys.  The office move involves lots of minor triage decisions, just like the personal move has the same sorts of choices by the dozen.  Mostly I need to decide what to throw out or give away, what to ship west and what to keep at the ready for my transition over the next five days.

          A simple thing like deciding whether to throw out or keep magazines to take to San Diego are details, but not unimportant ones.  I think when I finish writing this piece I will go online with several magazines and try to change my address. Details, details.  The bane of the moving man.  I have moved more than most. In my youth I trailed behind my mother across three continents.  Since college I have lived in sixteen residences for at least a year over the forty-four years.  That means I have moved once every 2.75 years.  Makes sense.  I was in the last place on Staten Island for three years and then in this place for two years.  Nonetheless, by most people’s standards, that’s a lot of moving.  Funny thing is that the house I am moving to in San Diego may be the last move I ever make.  Boy, does that sound heavy…and maybe not even all that accurate.

          I recently asked Kim, who had to stay in the house by herself for some three weeks, what she would do in terms of living arrangements if I got hit by a bus.  She said she would probably stay in the house but get a “Golden Girls” kind of roommate.  I’m not sure what I would do under similar circumstances.  Part of me likes the thought of permanence and part of me wonders if I’m up for something as normal as permanence.  I guess time and circumstances will tell.

          That may be the worst part of being up at night.  Your mind wanders into all the corners that are best avoided.  The clarity that allows me to finally get the joke of my son-in-law’s brilliance is the clarity that takes me to places best not pondered since there are no answers.  As I post this I realize this will publish on my 66th birthday, so this piece is my birthday gift to my readers. So, now that it’s 5:45am and Morning Joe is just around the corner, I guess its off to the New Yorker website to see if this New Yorker can keep his New Yorker when he goes to San Diego.  I like that ending, don’t you?