Three a.m. in California, Writing: Insomniac Edition
Thoughts on sleeping husbands, suburban wildlife, and the fault lines
It is 3:38 a.m. and here I sit in the blue chair in the living room, writing. I woke up at three on the dot, this non-essay spinning in my head, and could not go back to sleep, so I thought I might as well get up and get it down.
Once, we he was very small, my son asked, “Are we just a book and someone is writing us?” If so, then somewhere past the midpoint of this particular book, the mom character becomes an insomniac. I believe it may be a symptom of the (newly) empty nest.
I have always been a light sleeper, a terrible sleeper, a sleeper who gets up three or four times a night to “check the house.” This often involves checking the locks on the outer doors, peering out the plate glass windows into the dark. For several years, many-ish years ago, “checking the house” also involved checking on the child. Often it followed a bad dream (mine, not his). Was he still there, in his bed? Was he breathing?
I have often checked on my husband too. When he is too still and quiet, I worry that he has stopped breathing. When this happens I move closer, looking to see if his chest is rising and falling. If I can’t see his chest moving I get closer and closer, until I can hear him breathing. As I type this, I realize it might sound a little creepy.
Sometimes he wakes up and says, “Are you okay?” and I say, “It didn’t seem like you were breathing.”
“I’m breathing,” he says.
Well, we all are, I want to say, until we aren’t.
He is a patient man. I imagine it is no fun living with a light and fearful sleeper, someone who is forever climbing out of bed, checking and wandering.