Sunday sunrise [SWF]

@ mirandablue

Sunrise on October 10th, Sunday.  Taken from the roof-top of my apartment, this is looking towards the east---to Antipolo.  I enjoyed the orange haze at the horizon as I exhaled a yawn and was ready to hit the sack.  It was a long night!

@ mirandablue

I have a "carpe diem" mug and, truthfully, at six in the morning the words do not make me want to seize the day.  They make me want to slap a dead poet.  ~Joanne Sherman

@ mirandablue

Posted for SKY-WATCH FRIDAY

Excuses

Yeah, I know I’m late again. It’s not as if I can’t wake up on time. I have three alarm clocks, you know. My mother knocks at my door each morning. I have no trouble getting up, which I think is the primary source of my problem. Let me explain.

My alarm clock is the siren of a fire truck. I wake up, drag myself out of bed. As I open my bedroom door, there’s the burgundy sofa, with new silk covers and

My alarm clock is the siren of a fire truck. I wake up, drag myself out of bed. The sand feels warm under my feet, pebbles wet from the ebbing tide. The sky is deep blue with purple and orange hues at the horizon. The sun kisses my face, I’m late for work. I cover my sequined two-piece swim suit with white fur coat, put black fish net stockings on and slip into a Happy Feet bakya. As I leave Batanes

I wake up. I’m on a wet cement floor that smells like fish. I get up and run, trying to evade the man with a butcher’s knife. The wet market is crowded with TV cameras and rallyists; Mar Roxas is inspecting fresh meat and refuses to help me. I scream but the voices of market vendors drown me out. I fly like Jackie Chan from stall to stall, ceiling to walls, and seize a police motorcycle in the hope of escaping the butcher’s knife.

“Mag bra ka!” screams the butcher with a knife. I look down and I’m wearing an oversized white t-shirt with a Red Cross logo, braless.

Scared, I squeeze the throttle and the motorbike zooms towards MoA, but soon the butcher is riding a horse like a jockey. I am driving at maximum speed but the butcher’s horse seems to be bobbing up and down beside me, almost catching up. I switch the sirens on and close my eyes hoping I can scare the horse. Then

I wake up to a soft-lighted room, it’s warm and cozy, New Age music at the background. “Swedish massage?” Cesar Montano with hairy chest and a British accent asks, looking lean and tanned in his Egyptian loin cloth. I blink my eyes and go back to sleep. This is too weird, even for me, and besides, I have to get to

I wake up in a bowl of oatmeal with sago. It feels rather nice, warm but a little slimy. I try to swim out of the bowl, but as anyone who has wakened up in a bowl of oatmeal with sago knows, this is easier said than done. After a while, I decide to eat my way out instead. Wishing that the milk is non-fat, I nibble at the sago and

I wake up and drag myself out of bed. As I open my bedroom door, there’s the burgundy sofa and I think, here we go again…

And that’s why it takes me so long to get up. It happens almost every morning so it must be chronic, and you wouldn’t blame someone who’s suffering from something chronic, would you? That’s discrimination.

Silence. Legs shifting.

So does this mean I don’t get the deduction?

In Too Deep

Phil Collins with Genesis - In Too Deep, 1986

It's probably the full moon, or the two cups of cafe mocca that I consumed after 11 pm last night, or the conversation I had with a friend at dinner. Anyway, whatever it is...it's probably this song---it brings out the mushy-ness in me! I hope you'd join me in this sentimental journey and feel free to sing along (you can even make up your own MTV).:D

All that time I was searching

nowhere to run to

it started me thinking

Wondering what I could make of my life

and who would be waiting

Asking all kinds of questions, to myself,

but never finding the answers

Crying at the top of my voice

and no one listening

All this time, I still remember everything you said

There's so much you promised, how could I ever forget?

Listen, you know I love you, but I just cant take this,

You know I love you, but Im playing for keeps,

Although I need you, Im not gonna make this,

You know I want to, but Im in too deep.

So listen, listen to me

You must believe me

I can feel your eyes go thru me

But I dont know why.

I know youre going, but I cant believe

Its the way that youre leaving

Its like we never knew each other at all

it may be my fault, I gave you too many reasons,

being alone, when I didnt want to

I thought you'd always be there

I almost believed you...

All this time, I still remember everything you said

There's so much you promised

how could I ever forget?

Listen, you know I love you, but I just cant take this

You know I love you, but Im playing for keeps

Although I need you, Im not gonna make this

You know I want to, but Im in too deep.

So listen, listen to me, I can feel your eyes go thru me

It seems Ive spent too long

Only thinking about myself

Now I want to spend my life

Just caring bout somebody else.

You know I love you, but I just cant take this

You know I love you, but Im playing for keeps

Although I need you, Im not gonna make this

You know I want to, but Im in too deep...

Questions of an Insomniac

How does the body plead---wounded as it is from all its battles with the world---to the god of sleep?

Does it simply have to close its eyes and let the darkness flood the skin's interior like the water that closes---oh so gently---above the head of a drowning child?

Or does it need to fumble and tumble, to shout if it can until it is once again so tired and beaten it can choose to die?

If there, the body's slowly sinking into that soundless depth of sleep, how can you pull it further down to a flicker of headlight or the sob of a faucet can't send it rushing back to the surface, with all the weight of defeat?

What is the opposite side of 3:30 in the morning?

How many sheep have broken through the fence and tumbled straight into sightlessness?

What color does the sky have when a strand of sunlight is snatched into its unraveling fabric and all the stars are dipping?

What right do you have sleeping so peacefully like that beside me when I have flipped my pillow ten thousand times?

by Carlomar Arcangel Daoana

All you have to do is ask...

For the past three hours, I have been trying to concentrate on Milan Kundera’s novel called “Slowness” but my mind is somewhere else. I am haunted by last night’s ironies---Joan Armatrading’s raw, edgy, impassioned voice suits my mood.

I said I'm strong

Straight

Willing

To be a shelter

In a storm

Your willow

Oh willow

When the sun is out…

Her unmistakable voice and the rhythmic riff of guitar echo in the stillness of the early morning.

Thunder

Don't go under the sheets

Lightning

Under a tree

In the rain and snow

I'll be your fireside

Come running to me

When things get out of hand

Running to me

When it's more than you can stand…

I first heard Willow in a movie called “Boys on the Side”. That movie by the way has a great soundtrack. Willow is one of my favorites. Listening to each word, in a voice that is affecting somehow calms my troubled mind.

And if you want to be alone

Or someone to share a laugh

Whatever you want to do

All you got to do is ask…

Yeah, all you got to do is ask. I am not psychic, after all.

Sleepless

I am the kind of friend you can call at 3 am because more often than not, I would still be awake, reading and listening to music. I have a friend who suffers from transient insomnia so we chat on the phone once in a while in the small hours of morning. But when I called him around 2:30 am on Saturday, he told me to get out of bed and clean the bathroom. Drink milk. Count sheep. Play with Fritz. Or get back to bed and have an orgasm!

The latter was not a bad idea…but when I started reading ‘Istanbul’ (by Orhan Pamuk), I forgot his advice. By 4 am, I started noticing fine cracks on the wall. The wall beside my bed. The wall right beside my bed that I spend so many sleepless nights staring at. Through the years, I’ve developed a very special intimacy with my wall. Ours is an intimacy by circumstance. When I have long passed the point of resisting and in a peaceful state of surrender, I give up to its cozy closeness and undemanding company.

But there are instances when the serenity of our companionship is broken. I imagine Fritz being devoured by garapata so I'd go downstairs to check on him, scan the kitchen walls for crawling, creepy insects that might attack my dog. Or I would smell something burning. Or hear roaches somewhere near my bedroom door. Or listen to the callings of cats in heat. Then I’d fall asleep before sunrise.

Oh, I have not seen the sunrise in many, many years. The last sunrise that left an impression on me was the one I saw from the deck of a ship in 1990 on my way home to Negros. I don’t sleep on ships---worried of an underwater volcano that might erupt while I’m asleep, boulder of rocks the ship might bump into and other crazy things only a neurotic can concoct. It was a magnificent sunrise by the way, with hues of silver, purple, pink, orange and red. That reminds of a scene in a movie, 'Interview with a Vampire'---Louis (Brad Pitt) watching his last sunrise before becoming a vampire. Like Louis, I'm longing to see the sunrise again—when, I don’t know.

My sister would say in jest that she sleeps like a baby because she has a clear conscience. While I don’t claim to have crystal clear conscience, I attribute my sleeplessness to thinking too much, beautiful music, great literary works and the moon.

Dawn: When men of reason go to bed. ~Ambrose Bierce

Leftovers

On the second week of December, my friend S and I made a pact that whoever gains more weight after Christmas will pay for our body massage at the newly-opened spa in Bonifacio High Street. We’re weighing in tomorrow and I’m getting nervous! I still have one more party to attend tonight, and I’m gaining weight as I type this.

Three days after Christmas and I still feel stuffed! I guess as we grow older, Christmas isn’t so much about getting our wishes but eating our favorite foods! I skipped dinner last night, but at 2 am, I opened the fridge---another dead-of-the-night dining extravaganza for me! I ate the leftover chicken macaroni salad, ham and queso de bola…I reached for the leftover pasta but stopped myself. I enjoy my late night/early morning binges…everybody’s asleep except me, eating without rules. I like the quiet and comfort of my thoughts. I thought of leftovers, in their less visible form are called memories---stored in the fridge of the mind or in the cupboard of the heart.

A few of mine came up…hearty laughter shared with friends, the last embers of a bonfire by the beach, the long glance of love (from someone who used to love me) from across a room full of people, a long lost melody of a childhood song---Oh Danny Boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling, that brought me to sleep in my father’s arms, and a chunk of poetry I learned in high school---Tiger, tiger burning bright/in the forest of the night/what immortal hand or eye/dared frame thy fearful symmetry?

I am not often aware that I am happy. But I often remember that I have been happy. Especially on nights when I sit eating leftovers, wrapped in an invisible patchwork quilt made of the best moments I had. I thought of you---where were you at this moment? Or some other people who might be at the same place in their kitchen at this very moment, hungering as I hunger, wondering as I wonder. King Solomon must also had been suffering from a sleep disorder and got hungry at 2 am when he wrote---'Strengthen me with raisins, refresh me with apples, for I am faint with love...'

Delayed sleep-phase disorder

I envy people who fall asleep as soon as they close their eyes, or their backs hit the bed. My sister falls asleep standing up in the bus. Counting cows inside my head doesn’t work; I change animals to count through the years---ants, ducks, penguins, and I would still be counting by sunrise. I also tried counting bubbles, stars, cracks on the walls and ceilings, tiles in the bathroom. But sleep hides in places I can’t find.

I never cared much for sleeping even when I was a kid. The afternoon naps imposed by my parents were always met with resistance…like eating vegetables or brushing my hair when I get out of bed in the morning. As I grow older, I learned to eat some vegetables, and was compelled to brush my hair regularly lest I’d be mistaken as an escapee of a mental asylum. But sleeping has remained something that I regard with dislike. It interferes with things that I’d rather be doing.

The bad sleeping hygiene resulted to sleeplessness even when I wanted and needed to sleep. By mid-20’s, I would go on weeks, even months without a decent night sleep. My job was 9-5 and it was a struggle getting to work on time. I tried a cocktail of sleeping/wake-up pills, alcohol, relaxation techniques, exercise, marijuana and other home remedies---but they were all temporary solution, nothing really worked.

Insomnia runs in my family. My mother used to take Valium, my brother had transient insomnia when he was a teenager. So we all thought I was also suffering from the same sleep disorder. About 3 years ago, I went to a sleep clinic and consulted a sleep expert after seeing her on TV. The doctor’s diagnosis was not insomnia but another form of sleep disorder called Delayed Sleep-Phase Syndrome (DSPS).

DSPS is a chronic disorder of the timing of sleep, peak period of alertness and other rhythms. People with DSPS tend to fall asleep well after midnight and also have difficulty waking up in the morning. Sufferers manage only a few hours sleep a night during the working week, then compensate by sleeping until the afternoon on weekends. Sleeping in on weekends, and/or taking long naps during the day, gives people with the disorder relief from daytime sleepiness but also perpetuates the late sleep phase.

It’s difficult to explain a sleep disorder to those who have no difficulties falling asleep. It’s like describing a green leaf to a blind person.

Through the years, my family, friends and co-workers have come to accept that I’m a nocturnal creature. I feel most creative, alert and more active at night. Much as I want to be at my desk at 9 a.m. like everybody else, it’s hopelessly difficult.

I would love to be “cured” and start a new way of life, like a "normal" person.