Crackle

Crackle
Insomnia # 120628

Extra arms and legs appear in my bed,
like heads of the Hydra, every time I turn.
They pile like cordwood
against raw skin. Wherever I put them,
they sear, as if the flame
for which they were cut
burns hot already within them.
I twitch, exhausted, but not sleepy.
My body twists into a mobius strip,
a single surface of angst. Electricity crackles
and snaps down my spine, leaping from vertebrae
to vertebrae. My left foot circles and rears
like a stallion. When it leaps from the bed,
and drags the rest of me, protesting, with it,
out into canyons of darkness, I light the night
with the lantern that throbs
from my skull.

Mary Stebbins Taitt

Sleep Link

The transit of venus revisioned

The BBC had an article on sleep a while ago, which I just reread, and I've read the same information, maybe not as well put, before, elsewhere, I forget where.  The gist of it is that it may be normal and healthy to sleep four hours, get up for an hour or two, and then sleep again for four hours.

I do get up in the night and paint because I can't sleep, feel wide awake, but usually it is after laying awake for an hour or more at bed time.

I do sometimes wake up and feel wide awake also.

I wouldn't mind the getting and sleeping again, if I could still get enough sleep, and if it didn't get me out of sync with the rest of the world.  By which I mean, my family and community, my friends and so on.

I need to avoid "panicking" when I find myself awake at night. The anxiety keeps me awake when I might otherwise fall asleep again.

Last night I was laying awake and I said to myself, looks like another bad night and a little while later, I noticed I was falling asleep, and I woke myself up by being so excited and happy!

DUH!

But then I was relaxed about it and did go to sleep.

I woke up multiple times alter, but was feeling relaxed enough to go to sleep again.

Getting a good night's sleep helps with fibromyalgia and IBS!  If I don't sleep well, it's harder to accomplish things and I tend to be cranky and reactive.

(The image is from the transit of Venus across the SUN, but I have repurposed it here for a night scene.)

fasting gain

I am extremely bummed out because I've fasting for two days for a colonoscopy, and I GAINED WEIGHT!  AND I walked more than normal.  What's with that?

The good news is that my fibro is a little better.

Brave Benny Delays

Brave Benny Delays

I feel as if I am "making excuses" or "complaining," but it is true!  :-(  I haven't worked on my Brave Benny's Animal Alphabet book for a long time.  No wait, that's not exactly true--I haven't succeeded in doing any VISIBLE work on BBAA!  :-(

The other day, maybe three days ago now, I spent an hour and a half, maybe two hours, working on a layout sheet for the book, and I was within a hair's breadth of being finished with it, and the computer crashed and the file completely--and all my work--was gone, and since that time, I have not had time to sit and work again.  

Yesterday, ML came to dinner.  I spent the day racing around cleaning, shopping cooking, making desserts etc.  I didn't get any personal work done, except after dinner, during conversation, the paper testing. And so on--I won't go into it all, but something has happened every single day.  Belle Isle, Cranbrook, Graham's piano Lesson this morning.  AK!

complaints and resistance

1)I'm tired of complaining, but I always feel tired and cranky and can't seem to stop complaining.  :-(

2)When I really want to do something, or think I do, and make a commitment to it, I thin no longer want to do it, or part of me doesn't or is resistant or drags its feet.  :-( :-( :-(

--

I didn't trust it for a moment
but I drank it anyway,
the wine of my own poetry.
 
It gave me the daring to take hold
of the darkness and tear it down
and cut it into little pieces.
 
-- Lala, 14th century Persian poet

Mary

Murphy

I put on my dirty clothes early, since I was expecting a package and thought I had to sign for it, and after a while,  I wanted to wash up and put clean clothes on, and finally got sick of waiting and decided to wash up, and I looked out the window—not FED-X truck.  I stripped and started washing up, peeked out the widow and there came the Fed-X man with a big box on his shoulder and I dashed in the bedroom and through on a dressed dashed downstairs, but he had left—I didn't have to sign for the box after all. 

--

I didn't trust it for a moment
but I drank it anyway,
the wine of my own poetry.
 
It gave me the daring to take hold
of the darkness and tear it down
and cut it into little pieces.
 
-- Lala, 14th century Persian poet

Fibromyalgia Today

Fibromyalgia pain

I suffer from Fibromyalgia.  This painting is me, suffering.  The grey blue represents the exhaustion and depression that is linked with it.

Symptoms include joint pain and general pain, tiredness, a bad smell.  when it gets worse, I got miofascial when I hurt ALL over, not just the area of the joints and then chronic fatigue symptoms.

The good news is that my fibromyalgia has been improving.  I still have flare-ups, but at my worst, I am usually better now than I used to be at my best, although I still depressed by the whole cycle.

Here is what I think has helped me:

1)Sleeping better.  I got a CPAP machine which I have a love-hate relationship with. I still have insomnia and my fibro is worse on my insomnia days.
2)Eating better:  it may be different for different people, but I have to avoid SOY, DAIRY Sugar, white flour and keep legumes (beans etc) to a minimum.
3)Exercising regularly really helps me!  I walk and do stretching exercises.  I move around.  If I sit too long or do anything else too long, I stiffen up--I think this is part of what gives me insomnia.