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.)