Listening to the Sounds of Stillness

Apparently, I've reached the Age of Insomnia.

I usually end my days at about 8 p.m., retiring to my bedroom to read a little, to stop the noises in my head and the business of being busy. I don't actually sleep until an hour or so later, and the alarm for my hubby to get up is at 5 a.m. now, so if I can stay asleep, it would be a good eight hours.

But, after about four hours, I'm wide awake. I toss and turn and force my eyelids to stay closed and 30 minutes later, I just give up and get up.

I work at my art table for a while in silence, so as not to disturb the rest of my world. Sometimes I can lull myself back to a sleepy state and crawl back under the covers to grab another hour or so of shut-eye.

Last night, I decided to coat myself in bug repellent and sit outside on the deck. It was amazingly cool, and outstandingly serene.

There is something magical about being the only one awake, or at least awake enough to enjoy the fact that you're the only one awake.

Outside, I heard a couple of owls. They were not too far off in the distance, and sounded like a larger one and a smaller one. Crickets started up – the summer crickets that I so love to hear right about dusk. Then they stop. I'm not sure why, but I started to get a bit sad and weepy. I think it was just so still. So calm.

Dark and still and silent. Until you listen.

Being an artist who works from home, I am pretty much a solitary soul. But being alone in the night is different. It is altogether a singularly fragile feeling. I liken it to drowning, that is, how I would imagine drowning to be. Swallowed up by the depths, swirling around you. No pain, no fight, not a sound, muffled by the water.

I start to hear the sound of the waves crashing against the shorelines, which can be amazingly loud when it's so silent otherwise. The same waves, intensified by the ever-present coastal breezes, do not stand out at all during the daylight hours. I start listening intently for more noises I otherwise never hear. There's a train that comes through, and then a bit of chirping from a bird, species unknown. I startled a small opossum, who hadn't initially seen me sitting there as it made its way along the top of the fence. It decided I was no threat and continued carefully negotiating the pickets until it reached a big, rotted tree in the back, where it quickly leapt into the branches, safe from sight. You could hear it breathing, and the ticky-ticky of its claws along the wood.

It's too bad I have so much to get accomplished during the day, because I would love to stay up one night and fall totally into it, from beginning to dawn, and then welcome the sunrise.

But then, it probably wouldn't be the same, because that's the way magic moments are. You have them, then they're gone.