the art of snoozing
The image above is available for download. I encourage you to share it with friends, family, and coworkers on all your social media platforms. Insomniacs unite! (Verse and graphic are copyrighted, J.B. Fitzgerald, 2023, and may not be altered.)
In recognition of Sleep Awareness Month, I’d like to note, for the record, that I am—as indicated by the accompanying photo of my lovely assistant—fully aware that sleep happens. Just not to me. Not much. So, today, rather than bombarding my fellow sleep-deprived souls with what you should or shouldn’t be doing to improve your rest, I offer up a slice of silliness and the story of how it came about.
I’ve been thinking a lot, lately, about sleep, probably because—like one in three adults worldwide—I don’t get nearly enough of it. It's merely one of those things for which I lack the requisite skill, like piloting a jet, having any clue what the heck’s happening on a football field, or, say, doing as I’m told. I’m sure I was meant to pick up the latter ability in my youth, but, alas, I must have been absent that day. Or maybe I just didn’t feel like it. Yeah, that was most likely the issue. I was a good kid, but I definitely knew my own mind, and the wrath of the entire Roman pantheon wouldn’t put so much as a dent in my resolve.
Some things never change.
Including sleep. Sleep has always eluded me no matter how determined I was to develop a lifelong rapport with it. While I will fall asleep initially, I will not doze off again once I’ve awoken, no matter the hour. I can advise, implore, will myself to return to slumber, and it simply will not happen. I can read or listen to soothing music. I can strive to achieve a zen-like state of tranquility. I’ve taken to counting sheep as well, but whoever first touted this as a solution to insomnia, truly did not think it through. It's all a bit woolly, if you ask me. The trouble with sheep is that they are, like dogs, cute and fluffy. By the time I’ve mentally squished and kissed and adored them all in turn, frolicked through meadows and leapt over little fences in playful sport, well, I’m wide awake and ready to start all over again. Here, sheep, sheep, sheep. Who needs another cuddle? Of course, they all answer in the affirmative. Animals love me. Maybe I should count—I don’t know—tax forms? Carburetors? Footballs even?
It probably wouldn’t help. Once I’m up, I’m up. This has been the case for as long as I’ve been alive. This is probably the case for a fair number of you. What used to be a deficient four to five hours of sleep per night, has downgraded in recent years to one or two hours—three if a blue moon sits upon the horizon, the stars all align, and, across the globe, one moose, one rhinoceros, and one humpback whale simultaneously croon a moving rendition of Goodnight, Sweetheart. But, if fatigue, like misery, loves company, at least I’m in good company as I await my wildlife serenade. The characters in my upcoming, fictional four-book series have a tendency to chatter away the hours, preventing boredom, providing inspiration, and, if I’m honest with myself, obliterating any hope of drifting off again.
Maisie, on the other hand, now this is a girl who has mastered the art of sleep. After she’s consumed her morning meal and I’ve opened my laptop, she promptly sprawls over my bed, descending back into a deep and restful slumber. How I envy her ability to do so! She snoozes on her stomach, on her side, on her back. She snoozes with an ear or her whole head draped over the edge of the mattress. If all the blood pools into that brilliant noggin, it doesn’t faze her in the slightest. She rolls over for belly rubs whenever I leave my chair, then she dozes again. And again. My genius shepherd-beagle is sound asleep, even now as this workday draws to a close.
Tonight, I might wander into that nocturnal oblivion long enough for a single brief dream (which, to clarify, does not mean a dream about briefs--of either the legal or undergarment varieties), then I’ll jolt awake in the wee hours and lie there for hours more. The difference between this night and any previous night will be that I can always recite the lighthearted rhyme that filled my sleepless head in the long, silent hours leading up to Tuesday’s dawn. I’ve assembled it into a whimsical graphic for all my dear readers who know what it’s like to hear every minute of the nighttime ticking by. It may not lead to forty winks, but I do hope this Ode to the Sleep-Deprived has provided a chuckle and reminded you that, in your restlessness, you are never alone.
This Sleep Awareness Month, let us employ some woolly humor to show our solidarity for those struggling to slumber. Please download and post the Ode to the Sleep-Deprived graphic to your social media, to friends, family, coworkers. Let them know you understand…or, at the very least, that there’s a remarkably valid reason why, at this morning’s meeting, you face-planted into the donut box. Again.
Until next time, dog lovers: good reading, good sharing, and—rhinos, moose, and whales permitting—goodnight…
Get to know Maisie better in the memoir, Moonlight of the Talking Dog.
Thank you to Fun Digital for the background art and Anna Marie for the darling sheep illustration used in the Ode to the Sleep-Deprived.