Tag Archives: sleep

Mind over…

Posted on by
Reply

mind over butt…

“Didn’t even wake up once, dad.”

He spittles a few pieces of milk-sopped cereals, doesn’t notice or rather doesn’t care.

Honestly, neither do I.

“Yeah, actually, no no, my eyes went like this, you know just like this…”

He’s doing a Betty Boop fluttering lashes look.

“…opened like not even half and I saw that it was 5:11, and the cat went “raaaannrrrr” and started purring again and I went back to sleep and when I opened my eyes again, it like felt like the next minute, you know, but it was 6:38…imagine?”

I know. Two blinks of an eye and a decade goes by. Noah is 9. Imagine.

“Good, Noah. Feels great to sleep a whole night, doesn’t it?”

“Oh yeah, I’m full of peas!”

“Full of beans.”

“Yeah!”

Colloquial English expressions still escape him… still a foreign language. He was born into French and started learning English only in kindergarten.

“Did you sleep all night dad?”

“Yes, didn’t even get up to pee.” I’ve been training myself, developing an 8 hour bladder.

“That’s great dad!”

“No kidding. Thanks to you.”

“Really?”

“Sure.”

Gotta give credit when credit is due.

After all, I rightfully blame him for keeping me awake when he doesn’t sleep at night, torturing me with real but self induced pains here and there and everywhere. For weeks he would wake in the middle of the night and could not get back to sleep. I tried everything medical, homeopathic, herbal, magical, evil…nothing.Then I offered unlimited computer use if he didn’t wake me.

That very same night, he let me sleep, though I could hear him rustling. Now, several days later, he sleeps all night and so do I…all because he can have what he calls Eternal Computer time.

“Dad, it’s pretty amazing you know, now I sleep and I don’t know why. When like I could not sleep and I didn’t know why.”

“It’s just like at school, Noah, when you have a great day and your teacher puts a great note in your agenda, like yesterday.”

“Yeah, I love when I get a great note in my agenda. Do you love it too, dad?”

“Absolutely. Especially that it’s happening ever more frequently. And you know why it’s happening, right?”

“No.”

“Come on…”

“Oh, yeah, oh yeah, I remember. Because in the morning I go, “Ommmm…”, like when we meditated, yeah, so I relax and concentrate and I say, “Noah…listen work, Noah, listen, work, Noah, listen work…you know like a Mantis.”

“A Mantra.”

A Mantis, of the praying kind, eating the male after sex, is for much later in his life. I’ll teach him a few moves when the time comes.

“So it’s all in your control at school, Noah. And it’s the same when you go to sleep. Your mind is more powerful than any of your problems.”

Especially since most of his issues are generated by his mind to begin with.

“It would be so cool if I could like use my mind to reaaaaalllllyyy do anything. You know?”

“What would you do?”

“Dad, can I have more cereal?”

“Sure, go ahead.”

“Can you do it for me?”

“No.”

“Aaaawwwww-unh.”

The box of cereals and the small, kid-friendly pitcher of milk are both right there in front of him.

“Come on Noah….mind over mind!”

“Dad, I just want more cereal.”

“Part of your mind says, I’m hungry…another part says I’m lazy, which part is going to win? Suspense. The conclusion of this episode after the break.”

I get up and go pour myself a second cup of coffee.

By the time I get back he’s gone brooding-brow on me. The cereal bowl is as empty as his stomach probably is.

“Once more, the arch villain, “Butthead” has succeeded in defeating the good guys.”

“You’re calling me Butthead?”

He’s shocked, insulted, incredulous….all so wonderfully evidenced in his slack jawed, wide-eyed, red-eared expression.

“Yes, just like sleeping is defeating Butthead that doesn’t want to sleep and doing well at school is defeating Butthead who doesn’t want to listen, serving yourself cereal is telling Butthead to fart off.”

He can’t help smiling. “Fart off Butthead! Ha!”

“Come on. Serve yourself.  We’ve got to get moving soon.”

He bends over and farts and then waves the fetid smell in my face.

I hold my nose, “Gross!”

“Butthead strikes!!”

He laughs with a total super villain chortle…. and serves himself a new bowl of cereal.

Mind over Mind.

Now, Mind over Smell.

 

 

Need you…

Posted on by
Reply

…want you

“Look, dad, I’m sure this is going to work.”

“She’ll find a way around, you’ll see.”

Noah has built a barrier with two chairs, a trophy and an exercise ball.

“I’m sure this way she’ll stay with me all night.”

The cat’s habit is to lie with him until he falls asleep. Then she absconds and rushes around the apartment in feline follies. The barricade is to impede his movements during the night.

“I’m doing this for both of us dad. Because you know, if I wake like at 1:43, and the cat is with me I’ll just like fall back asleep again. That’s good, no?”

“Going back to sleep is good, for sure. But the more you do so with just your will the better off you’ll be.”

“What’s wrong about wanting the cat there with me, geez, dad,”

“Look, Noah, I motivated you this week by saying that if you slept in your bed all week we would go to the Pokemon pre-release on the Sunday. We’re Thursday and what’s happened?”

“I’ve slept all night in my bed and like I woke up at 2:29 but I fell back asleep.”

“Proof that it’s all about how motivated you are to solve it on your own. If you want to sleep you’ll find the way.”

He looks at me with a challenge in his eyes.

“Can I just say one thing dad? You know that if you want a kid to do something, yeah it’s always better if you give them a reward, like Mr. Aaron who said that if I dress more quickly for recess he’ll give me a neat surprise. And uh, not going to Pokemon is not like a, a, you know, a prize. It’s more like a punishment.”

“But it’s working.”

The cat jumps sideways against the wall and vaults over Noah’s barrier.

“Aaaaawwww…”

She blinks at him in slow motion mockery.

“Oh yeah, I think I know what I can do to stop her.”

He runs to find further objects to erect a more impassable barricade between his room and the hallway.

“Stop.”

He freezes.

“This is ridiculous Noah. You know if you want to keep the cat in your room, it’s easy. Close the door. That’s what they were invented for.”

“I can’t dad. I’ll freak.”

“No way that you’re going to build walls full of furniture and stuff every day. The cat’ll go wild during the night and it’ll come tumbling down…and good bye Pokemon tournament.”

“Pppppfffffffff…”.

“Pppppppfffff to you too. Trapping the cat is going to teach her to avoid you.”

“Really?”

“Sure, beasts of all types learn to avoid what they don’t like.”

“But, I need her, dad.”

“She has to want to sleep on your bed, Noah. By her own choice. Make it more attractive to be with you than to leave.”

“How, dad?”

“I don’t know. Think like a cat.”

“Hah.”

He throws himself on the floor and starts licking his paw, cleaning his ears.  He arches and scratches. He scampers on all fours and throws himself into the pile of stuffed animals in the hall closet. He comes out with an old duck.

“Remember, dad, this was Ouaga’s favorite.”

He jumps on his bed and arranges a small cat lair: blanket, stuffed duck and one of his old socks that the cat loves.

“Do you think she’ll want this way, dad?”

Already the cat has approached, intrigued. Certainly better than trapping her with a wall.

 

 

 

nothing to lose…

Posted on by
Reply

…but loss itself

The Saga continues… as endlessly as the increasingly annoying and cloying Star Wars.

“That’s how badly, dad, I want to go to the Pokemon pre-release. Yeah, two nights that I don’t sleep at all.”

This as he jumps in my bed at the sound of the alarm.

7 a.m.

He looks as energetic as ever, he’s already talking in paragraphs at every breath. I stare at him… he does not have that telltale dark rim under the eyes.

This kid is sleeping.

“Are you sure you don’t feel as if you stayed awake all night, but in fact you fell asleep, woke, fell asleep etc?”

“No, I swear, I like got up at uh 12 and then I went for a poo, three times yeah because my stomach felt cramped and then the cat came and I stayed awake in my bed and yeah, dad, I even like did this so you wouldn’t like hear me cough.”

He smothers his head under the pillow.

He got up at 1h40, I woke, told him to go back to bed in no uncertain terms… and if he did not stay in his bed to sleep he could forget going to the super, mega, hyper, beyond-imagination-epic worldwide Pokemon pre-release of the new series, next Sunday. He grumbled but went to bed. It took me  an hour to fall back asleep.

I can’t afford having him come to my bed and falling asleep instantly while I lose whole nights of sleep… as he’s been doing since Christmas.

I will not give an inch. He’s warned. If he does not stay in his bed every night until Sunday, he will miss an event he’s been panting about forever, to borrow a Noahism.

I did not hear him for the rest of the night. No belly ache…no coughing… no rustling …nothing.

Noah. The unquiet Noah. How unlikely.

“Mission accomplished then Noah.”

“Huhn?”

“I slept most of the night… and you might still go to the Pre-release.”

“That’s like, I’m sorry to say it dad, but that’s like cruel. You sleep and I don’t.”

I could argue with him that he’s actually sleeping, but loves the adventure of convincing himself that he stays awake, but what for?

As a kid, and later as an adult, and now as a writer, I  always preferred a tall tale with a few facts than the bland reality.

Some call it lying, I call it myth-making. Sometimes it reveals deeper truths.

“Were you afraid all night?”

“No not really. But you know what got me all awake, like you know when you go all wide-eyed, yeah and you sit and look around? Yeah, that’s what I did and it was because I had like a dream. Yeah, my whole family was on a bus and there was this freaky bad guy in a black hoody driving and he drove the bus over a bridge and we were all dead. Freaky, huhn?”

“And who was in the bus?”

“Me, you, Auntie Fern, Melina, Vince, Tonton Georges, Uncle Enzo, Cathy and Scotty.”

The whole family but not his Mother or his dead grandmother, Nonna.

“And did you know who the bad guy was?”

“No.”

“And how did it make you feel.”

“Sad.”

“And afraid?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

By now he’s lying on the futon, under a blanket under Ouaga, the cat who is dead asleep.

“I don’t know why dad. But I can’t fall asleep anymore if Ouaga is not in the bed, you know, when I call her, yeah and she like comes and even if she stretches and sticks her claws in me, it helps me relax and sleep.”

His Mother started disappearing from his life when he was nine months old. Borderline syndrome and then schizophrenia stole her from us, leaving only a violent, destructive cacophonous beast that hurt us.

Then she left.

Noah has been managing loss ever since. Even the fantastical stories he writes like THE RED DEATH SKULL (his 58 volume epic), always include a boy who lost his Mother, sometimes all of his family.

But the boy always survives, thrives and succeeds.

“Noah, if ever you dream the same dream, kick the hoody guy in the balls and when he’s down holding his jewels try to see who he is.”

A crooked toothed chuckle. The boy’s eyes are bright. He’s been sleeping, I know it.

The cat sighs. I think she’s been teaching him a thing or two about sleeping.

She raises what could be considered her eyebrow without opening her eyes.

 

traditions…

Posted on by
Reply

…revolutions, kisses

“You know, dad, I love Ouaga.”

That’s our black cat…Ouga is short for Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso.  We got her after my trips to Africa. She’s all black with a few incongruous white stains, just the way I felt as a rare white in that all-black city.

“Yeah, like we grew up together.”

“Sure, Noah, in the morning she has a series of routines just like us.”

“Yeah, like she meows when you get up…”

“…and then she meows to be let out…”

“…and then she trips us up you know between the legs, yeah, to say good bye when we leave…”

“…because she’s impatient to crash out on your bed in the sunlight.”

“That’s the best place in the whole apartment, dad. Cats sure sleep a lot.”

Oh, by the way, this whole exchange is happening while Noah wipes his butt. My still primeval boy doesn’t need a fig leaf.

“But you know, dad, Ouaga and me we have a lot of traditions together. Yeah. like you remember when I used to always get up at 5h30?”

Remember? Its etched in my body with poor quality wood-burning tools…like the ones that they sell to kids for artsy, crafty moments. Until two years ago I was so severely sleep deprived that I grew a beard to hide behind.

“Yeah, so, you know, Ouaga and I we had a tradition to turn on the Tv and get real close and cuddle, so you could sleep.”

Sweet but ineffective…the two of them were so noisy, I could hear their every movement while I pretended to sleep.

“And then at Christmas, we like waited for Santa Claus together, yeah, remember when I was little and I believed in him.”

Yeah, I remember.

Before his Mother went crazy, we used to hide together to watch him carry Ouaga all over the apartment in the middle of the night, hoping to see the bearded wonder. Cat and boy would eventually fall asleep, curled in a ball.

And we made love.

“She’s beautiful, eh dad?” He’s looking at the cat.

“Yes, she is.” I’ve turned my eyes inward, naked shadows of pleasure and abandon playing in the caves of my mind.

I found out last night, from a friend in Belgium, that a revolution has occurred.

After more than seven years of struggles, Noah’s mother has finally accepted that she’s ill and has volunteered for treatment…and seems to be regaining control over her life.

Who knows. One day Noah may be able to visit her in Belgium. And they could have a relationship that nourishes them both.

Since they will both outlive me, they could establish some wonderful traditions together.

As we rush down the stairs to catch Noah’s school bus, Ouaga hangs over the railing of our third floor balcony. Noah blows him a kiss.

“Have a good day, Ouaga.”

Moments later, I’m blowing a kiss to Noah as the bus pulls away.

May his Mother one day enjoy him as I do.

I wish her well.

 

rest (1)…

Posted on by
Reply

…and peace

As we walk, we talk.

“Dad, now that the house that Nonna had is like, you know, gone, I guess, like, where are we going to, you know, have the birthday parties and Christmas and things like that?”

Emotional geography. Where do we meet to celebrate being in  love?

“When its your birthday or my birthday we’ll party at our house. When its Vince or Melina (his cousins) we can do it at Auntie’s place.”

“Daddy, sometimes I wish I had brothers and sisters so that you know when I need help or I’m sad somebody will be there.”

I was about to reassure him…

“But then you know, I think… Melina and Vince are like not just my cousins but I love them like my sister and my brother. And they love me. And then when we’re old we’ll have children and then have Christmas all at the same place, like with Nonna.”

My little man has learned to reassure himself without my intervention.

The arc of our family history is going in the right direction.

My Mother was never reassured. Worry etched fault lines in her heart which I am sure killed her, last Saturday night. She never rested, never slept. A nightmare for a teenage son.

Teaching a small child to lull himself to sleep rather than “putting” him to sleep is the best way to guarantee that he will know the way even when alone.

Noah learned to fall asleep alone, after massive struggles. Now, he is self assured as his Nonna never was.

As I aspire to be, one day.

Lead the way, my boy. Your Nonna’s finally resting. Her days had to end in the middle of the night for her to rest.

“Dad, can we call Melina and Vince, to like you know, say hello? Just to talk, like.”

Love, not need. Rest, not worry. Peace, not turmoil. Being, not becoming.

Death, not loss.

Nothing is ever lost.