Bad Dreams & Invisible Monsters

3:37 am

Mom?
Yeah?
Bad dream.
What happened?
There was a goldfish.
And?
I can't remember after that.

Uta falls back to sleep. I don't really, but try my best, and sort of settle in, feeling sleep is still within reach. And then...

4:07am
Mom?
Yeah?
Another one.
Please let me sleep.
It was soo scary.
What happened?
I don't remember.
Please sleep.

And he does. Only this time sleep feels like a penny dropped in the sea for me. Its gone, I'm never getting it back. I can lie in bed and try and hope and will myself to sleep, but I'm wide awake and the worries have already crashed through the door (they wait patiently just outside most nights). So now I must contend with them, push them all back out before I might sleep again. But I'm already thinking of the morning, wondering if the effort is worth the trouble. Shall I just start my day along with the bakers, rise and shine, make Uta's lunch? Or maybe I should draw. That last idea makes me dig a little deeper under the covers, nestle my head a little heavier on my pillow.

4:27am
Kizuki coughs. She wakes and begins flapping her legs like a fish tossed from the comfort of the ocean onto the deck of a boat. I wait. She stops flapping. I see the blacks of her eyes open in the dark, but she is not really registering anything. Her eyes close. She sleeps. But not me. I'm still thinking about getting up, listing all the reasons stopping me from going to the studio to draw. The air feels a little chilly, and my throat a little scratchy. I might be catching a cold. I should sleep. But I can't! So why not draw!

4:42am
And then H starts snoring. Snoring so loud and so continuously I wonder how he is managing to take in adequate air for survival, much less sleep! Its almost five. No, there is no use even trying to sleep at this point. So?

Recently it is not just the middle of the night that finds me struggling to get myself in the studio. It is anytime, all the time. Granted I don't have much free time to speak of, but moments do arise when I could very realistically do a little something and don't. H says I'm fighting an invisible monster. There is nothing really stopping me from drawing. Nothing?! I'm fighting nothing? There is nothing to fight? Its like telling me I've been using every last ounce of blood and sweat in my body to break down a locked door. But the door is not really locked. Its open. All I need to do is turn the handle and walk right in.

I think of Toni Morrison. When she had small children underfoot she made a habit of rising by five and using the quiet before they woke to write. This is what I need to do as well. I need to make a new habit.

I get up.