Night-time Ramblings

It's a strange thing, waking in the middle of the night.

It's been happening a lot to me lately.  First I become aware of the fact that I should be sleeping.  There's a little bitterness to this thought, but in the next instant I become aware of the fact that I am still horizontal and am really quite cozy in my bed.  After that I hear the cars on the freeway, and I wonder where all those people are going: are the running away? running home? heading off on adventure?  Are they happy, or sad, or indifferent?  I hear the trucks downshifting on the freeway and smile as I sink further into my pillow, because while the sound inspires wanderlust it somehow also inspires comfort. 

Then the first minute or so of being awake has passed and I open my eyes.  The darkness is there, pressing down on me, but not in an uncomfortable way.  No, the darkness is a friend at this point, a warm blanket that wraps me in a strange fairyland: an alternate universe.  The thoughts are murky and surreal - thoughts I would never have during the reality of day.  But here in this place they are free to roam and wander and they very often do.  There's no self-judgement in this place - no pulling in on the reins of imagination, no worrying that other people might not understand the flights of fancy I take; that they may not be "normal."

Some time later - whether it be seconds or minutes I really don't know - I begin to notice the glow of light coming from my bedside table.  My clock.  I know the instant I see the time my friend the darkness will turn on me, but curiosity forces me to turn and look.  In that moment the darkness becomes an enemy - who knows what fairies lurk in that land?  Because anyone who has read just one fairytale knows that for every friendly sprite there is a dark fairy, bitter and out for some sort of revenge.  One legend says that when the Great Battle happened in Heaven the fairies chose to wait it out and avoid taking sides until there was a clear winner.  For this they could not remain in Heaven.  Because they had not actively participated in the battle, however, God showed compassion and threw them not into Hell but onto Earth, where they are sentenced to live until He comes again.  Some of the fairies, says the legend, have found joy on Earth: others have not.  This comfortable fairyland of darkness, the land that just moments before had encouraged whimsy, has suddenly become slightly forbidding.  I pull the covers more tightly around me and turn away from the clock. 

I catch sight of the moon and somehow - for better or for worse - reason kicks in.  I am simply Stephanie, in my room, at 1:00 or 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning.  There is no fairyland.  There is no whimsy.  There are only a few more hours to sleep, and my eyelids drift closed as I say a quick prayer of thanks that I still have those hours of sleep. 

When I wake in the morning I greet the day (whether cheerfully or resentfully) and try to remember the thoughts I had in the night.  They're murky - as if I am looking at them through water, or maybe even remembering something from a storybook and not a clear thought I had thought - and I begin to question if I ever built them.  I can remember the time on the clock.  I can remember the position of the moon when I looked at it for comfort.  But the whimsy that was spun, the enchantments that were built, are gone. 

I shake my head as I get up for the day.  Maybe they'll come back to me later.