Night time

(in response to Insomnia, by Elisabeth Bishop)

Night time. Day time. Time isn’t just time. It has different qualities. At night the stillness can be peaceful or empty torment. God filled or God forsaken. At one or abandoned. Lifted by the presence of the moon, not the only one awake. Huge bright moon. Dancing in the moonlight. Unseen. A different sense of abandon. Free from the gaze of others. Liberated. Unseen, unjudged. Dancing when no-one is looking. Tick tock. Day time. Rush, rush, rush. Now it’s dark. Hush, hush, hush. Always told to sleep right through you, the dark night a village not worth visiting. But I like to alight here, take my lantern and go outside, feel the dark air stark on my skin. Moonbathed. Buoyant. Lift me up to the moon. To this reflected light. Look deep into her, seeking the light of reflection, of connection. A sense of belonging in the dark places, the dark time. Serenity. Stillness. Hammering outside. What is trying to get in? Who? Denying the door to sleep, to dreams, to fraternising with my unconscious. The moon lures my ego to cling to the light, resist the dark, the depths, the well walls closing in, the tunnel I have to claw to climb out of. Night-time. I would not be without you. Yet I wish we were kinder together, more harmonious. The rarity of a refreshing night’s sleep. The dreams that can haunt a day, a week. Teeth clamped on to me, unsettling my every waking move. Teeth. Whose teeth? Like an infant, not sucking eager for nourishment, insatiable, but the furious infant gnawing in frustration, rebellion, seeking to make a mark in anger, to brand you mine. Dark night, dark time. The moon is not always visible. The cloud of dark that engulfs, seeps into my lungs. Poison gas. Being in a trench in World War I, looking up at the moon – comfort or affirmation of desolation? Corpses, limbs, discarded around one. Rotting flesh, scent of decay inhaled by the light of the moon. Smoking a cigarette, wisps rising into the air. Haunt of the moon. What lullaby is this?

I used to suffer from insomnia. I slept very little until my late twenties. When things were really bad and I didn't sleep for days I would start seeing coloured auras around people's bodies. I believe that's called hallucinating. Mine was a man-made insomnia, because it started by forcing myself to stay awake. As a child, I often woke up to my mother's screaming during one of my parents' many arguments. My father used to smack her and throw her around the room and she would call for us to wake up and witness her abuse. Us children would immediately go to her, stand to attention by their bedroom door. Sometimes he stopped, sometimes he didn't, but I started feeling like it was my job to keep her safe, to try to stop him with my presence. So I kept myself awake, just in case. I would sing songs in my head, practice the timetables, have endless conversations with myself, in and out of sleep until the morning, when it was time to get ready for school.

Night time became a very active time for my mind. I trained myself to need little sleep, functioning even when I should have been exhausted.

When I met my husband and talked to him about my night time habits, he told me he thought all I needed was someone to make me feel safe. I didn't say this to him at the time, but the words 'bullshit' and 'corney' popped into my head. It turned out he was perfectly right. His presence in my life gave me stability and the capacity for sleep. Something else I am grateful for.

It is true that we can only appreciate something when we experience it fully.

My night times are for sleeping and nothing else.

You always take me by surprise...Arriving amongst the fading light.When luck shines we can experience the whole palette of colours, shifting & unfolding as if Kandinsky was in charge of the entire affair. Imperceptible shifts keep us on the edge of our seats & remind us that some of the richest & most magical conversations of our lives have happened unplanned & unscripted, during the magic hour, when dusk turns to night. We spoke of so many things that we never even knew we were feeling & as the shadows took form & danced across the wall, orange streaks began to glow & then burn into a flash as a stray car headlight dips into sight. And as we shared the thought behind the thought, the thought beyond the thinking, the lantern in the night lit our way & helped to turn things inside out. And down the paths of confusion & bewilderment we arrived back - slightly shaken but so much more alive – at a new place of understanding & knowing. Life as silly putty. The moment when everything falls back into place & the confusion & not knowing are all somehow part of the latticed view. We sat together at the Lucid table & I became you & you, you showed me that everything was possible & that nothing was...just nothing & that felt fine & as so often happens, we realised just how hungry we were & when you've gone I realise... just how hungry I am.