Saturday, April 23, 2005

Caged and Wakeful

There comes a certain point during the night when you wake up and you know that either you're not going to be able to go back to sleep, or if you do go back to sleep, the next time you wake you're going to feel like hell because you really didn't need to go back to sleep. I hit that one at about 5:30 this morning after a mangled dream that compressed past and present, failure and success, and was starting to turn into little anxiety scenarios. Screw that, wake up, get up.

Part of the problem was that we were back indoors last night, after a wicked little wind storm blew through with patches of rain. The previous two nights I slept like I really knew how to do it, and had interesting (if peculiar) dreams from which I was reluctant to exit. Outside, it's so easy to relax, the blankets don't try to wrap around your neck and choke you, the angels don't sneak in and turn up the heat in the room until it seems like a furnace.

Yesterday morning when I woke at seven (to the sound of finches and distant magpies) it was a blissful 47 degrees outside -- perfect for snuggling under a quilt. This morning, by comparison, it had to be 65 degrees in the house. That's almost repulsive.

We've been looking around for a replacement tent; the dome tent we bought back in '01 is starting to break down, but the problem is that no one seems to be making tents with see-through mesh on sides and top. They're settling for "skylights" and "windows." How dull. If one is going to sleep outdoors, doesn't one want to see the outdoors? It looks like we're going to have to break down, buy tulle again, and make our own. (Last year's tulle was from Wal-Mart, and was very cheap. It simply didn't hold up, and so only lasted one summer.)

Or maybe I'll go back to saying "I'm not going to sleep outside this year."

Yeah, right. Just like I said, "I'm not going to wear a watch any more." But that's a whole 'nother story.

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