Reclaiming the Night
I think it was being made to go to bed at eight o'clock for years, just as Bewitched was starting. It was my favourite programme at the time but I hardly ever got to watch it because eight o'clock was Bedtime. My parents disapproved of Bewitched anyway, especially the Communist, because it was about Capitalist Americans, even if one of them was a witch.
I remember thinking at the time, look, Mum and Dad, I am your firstborn child and I know that you profess to adore me - - and yet you apparently have no idea quite how much watching this programme means to me. Or how upsetting it is for me to be going up the stairs just as the theme music comes on, until it stops abruptly as you change channels.
Oh, okay, as childhood suffering goes it's not that high up the scale of anguish, but I've always remembered it.
Ever since then, I've been trying to reclaim the night.
"Aren't nights long?" asked a bewildered Stephen a few months ago, when a cold had kept him awake quite a bit in the night. For his perception of sleep is that you put your head on the pillow at about, say, ten o'clock, and then the alarm clock goes off and it's time to get up.
At ten o'clock I'm just waking up. Left to my own devices I wouldn't go to bed until about two: but since I usually have to get up for work in the morning I generally compromise at sometime just before one.
Then I wake up at least once, sometimes twice in the night. Instantly, I'm wide awake, and I'm downstairs checking my email, or hanging up the washing. Then, back to bed - - straight back to sleep - - wake up a couple of hours later, check that the snake and the geckos are okay, put out my clothes for the morning, read a bit - - straight back to sleep.
Then the alarm clock goes off, and I get up and have some coffee, let the cat out, feed the cat, let the cat in again, feed the birds, check my emails - - and by then I'm kind of awake.
People tend to be surprised by how little I sleep. Visitors to the house quickly realise that all they have to do is open their eyes in the middle of the night and I'm instantly awake.
And yet, in general, it's not that I have difficulty getting to sleep - it's just that I tend to wake up raring to get on with things. I hate wasting the night.
I remember thinking at the time, look, Mum and Dad, I am your firstborn child and I know that you profess to adore me - - and yet you apparently have no idea quite how much watching this programme means to me. Or how upsetting it is for me to be going up the stairs just as the theme music comes on, until it stops abruptly as you change channels.
Oh, okay, as childhood suffering goes it's not that high up the scale of anguish, but I've always remembered it.
Ever since then, I've been trying to reclaim the night.
"Aren't nights long?" asked a bewildered Stephen a few months ago, when a cold had kept him awake quite a bit in the night. For his perception of sleep is that you put your head on the pillow at about, say, ten o'clock, and then the alarm clock goes off and it's time to get up.
At ten o'clock I'm just waking up. Left to my own devices I wouldn't go to bed until about two: but since I usually have to get up for work in the morning I generally compromise at sometime just before one.
Then I wake up at least once, sometimes twice in the night. Instantly, I'm wide awake, and I'm downstairs checking my email, or hanging up the washing. Then, back to bed - - straight back to sleep - - wake up a couple of hours later, check that the snake and the geckos are okay, put out my clothes for the morning, read a bit - - straight back to sleep.
Then the alarm clock goes off, and I get up and have some coffee, let the cat out, feed the cat, let the cat in again, feed the birds, check my emails - - and by then I'm kind of awake.
People tend to be surprised by how little I sleep. Visitors to the house quickly realise that all they have to do is open their eyes in the middle of the night and I'm instantly awake.
And yet, in general, it's not that I have difficulty getting to sleep - it's just that I tend to wake up raring to get on with things. I hate wasting the night.
posted by Daphne at 5:37 pm
4 Comments:
I'm assuming that "The Snake" is an unpleasant nickname for your husband or partner and that "The Gekkos" are your offspring - again quite unpleasant. Are you sure you live in Leeds? It's just that I had always been led to believe that people from Leeds are illiterate. Do you nurse them or something?
By the way - thanks for dropping by my humble blog.
She's from Leeds, but in her mind she's really from York. So it doesn't count.
The geckos don't like you now. They didn't appreciate being compared to me. They are the epitome of beauty and intelligence.
Whether you can see light through their ears or not.
I like the night to last from about midnight to about midday. Any disturbance in the meantime will get itself injured.
I thought the post was going to be about the "reclaiming the night" marches. I won't attempt to reclaim the night in cities nowadays, otherwise I'd be trying to reclaim my phone, wallet and various organs too.
I was passionately attached to the Adam West Batman series, to the point that I remember sobbing hysterically when I wasn't allowed to watch it. Funny, conidering how terrible it is really!
(Emily's funny!)
A. x
I'm going to try not to blink during the night next time I stay just in case I wake you up.
See you soon x
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