Night

I  hasten to point out that my bodyworker is not the automotive sort, clarifying what is mostly a west coast and east coast term for massage guy...and that this guy, Ross, comes to my home, which separates him from most massage guys, not to mention automotive bodyworkers, a.k.a., sheet metal artists.  Yes, I am blessed with Ross.  He is well schooled in the art of calming, or as the practitioners say, releasing, muscle tension.  And damned if I wasn't immediately sinking into it, Ross with his table set up next to the one I dine on, me with my clothes off, tensions fluttering away.  Not without some pain, of course.  Ross has a way of digging into my scapula as though after something buried.  I want to tell him that there are no abandoned coins, oysters or truffles under my shoulder blades.  But he digs anyway.  A spade and a crowbar would feel about the same at times.  But not the aftermath.  There's a lightness about my heaviness in the wake of Ross and his kneadings.  And a profound relaxation.

Which makes it all the more strange that long after Ross departed and I had slept deeply, my eyeballs bolted awake.  It was 3 AM, and do you know where your children are?  Dancing about the ceiling with hooves and sharp tails.  Something had jolted me into wakefulness, and it was not going anywhere.  Not soon.  Not at 4 AM or at 5 AM.  And why?  The bodywork.  That's my answer.

'How's the tension level?'  I already knew the answer.

'What have you been doing to yourself?'  Ross told me my body was a mass of knots.

And, okay, so with the unraveling of the knots comes...no sleep?  Apparently.  The body awareness end of psychology holds that we retain all sorts of emotional energy in our tensed flesh.  Some practitioners can draw a sort of psychic map of the body and its stresses.  I can only nod dumbly at such observations.  But I do nod.  There is truth to all this, even if I don't understand it.

So, there I was, eyes bugged out of my head, wondering if the ceiling was 10 feet from the floor or 9 3/4 inches from the floor.  And thinking that there really was a way to measure the problem without getting out of bed.  A laser.  That's what was missing.  That or maybe a really accurate GPS system.  SatNav for the home.  Just a matter of bouncing beams.  And what was radar but bouncing beams?  Like a rubber ball, I come bouncing back to you.  You, hoo-hoo.  Bouncing, bouncing.

Some describe insomnia as boring, but this is precisely what it is not.  Boredom is fatiguing.  This is stimulating.  Annoying, but stimulating.  Yes, the difference between 4:35 AM and 5:11 AM, revealed in successive glances at the bedside clock, may seem dull as tofu, but the experience is utterly captivating.  After all, there's enough to keep you awake when every cell in your body wants to sleep.  Fascinating.  And, what time will the carport light automatically switch off?  Its beams are visible through the open door of the bathroom.  They flood the hallway, brighten the night, all night, well, not quite all, on account of the timer.  Somewhere there's a electric timer.  Actually, one does not really know this.  The electric timer is assumed to exist, its workings visible, no invisible, but one cannot prove this.  One could place a bet on 6:15.  But one might lose that bet, the timer being an imprecise mechanism, one supposes.  And dammit if it isn't 6:12 glowing on the clock screen, and the big moment will pass or not pass.  Just keep an eye on the hallway.

At which point, the night's critical mass of anger reaches its latest crest...the previous peak having come half an hour before.  Which suggests, in the nocturnal rhythm of insomnia, an acceleration.  Because when you think about it, and I now am, transportation is never profitable.  It's too capital-intensive, according to this guy on the old Amtrak Reform Council.  Really, and when you add up everything, say, publicly funded airports, air traffic control and the other tax-support impacts, air travel is a loser, completely dependent on public investment.  Which is why this anti-tax movement in California is so risible, Marlou.  Really, it is.  As though high-speed rail ever made a profit anywhere, including the Chunnel trains...or absolutely any trains run on a schedule.  And, Marlou, however you grew up, surely when you look at the modern world....

Quite remarkable how long these pseudo-conversations with the deceased can go on.  But this one has halted.  Because it's after 6:30.  Which is utterly infuriating, so galling that I pound the pillow next to me.  Yes, well, not completely ignoring the former occupant and her unceremonious departure.  I pound and pound.  After which I'm tired and need a little rest.  After which it's 8:45, and I've had a couple of unexpected hours of sleep and...I sit up and make my way to the wheelchair.