Books for sleepless nights

I have an insomnia problem.  My version of insomnia usually cuts the middle out of my night.  I'll sleep for awhile, but that 1 AM to 5 AM stretch could find me spending most of it awake.

I decided awhile ago to just go with it most nights (unless life's demands demand that I take a pill), instead of fighting it with over-the-counter drugs that make me feel lousy in the morning, and that (this is totally unsubstantiated) I suspect of making my dreams more unpleasant.

Insomnia advice often agrees with this.  If you can't sleep, just quit lying there in frustrated knots and do something till you're sleepy.

Reading is one of the best things for occupying a sleepless mind without pumping me up and making the mental hamster-wheel worse.

But I'm finding that not every book that I generally enjoy is right for this time of the night.

Your feelings may differ, but I would call craft and project idea books a no-no.  They are more likely to get me pumped up to take an idea get started on a project, than to lull me to sleep.  But if your mind works differently and finds that an idea to implement tomorrow helps you sleep, they might work for you.

I love mysteries, but they tend to gear my brain up.  I love historical novels, but some are depictions of the worst of human history.  Those will aggravate the hell out of me when I'm already restless, with wishing people hadn't been so violent, so power-mad, so shortsighted and that we'd show more signs of learning from the past.

What works, then?

It will be different for everyone, but here's what I've discovered:

1.  A booklight. I read in the dark with a booklight, EVEN if I don't need to - even if I'm out in the living room and a lamp would not disturb my husband.  The surrounding dark keeps me from shifting into daytime mode and I'm more likely to get drowsy after awhile.

2.   Vintage children's books that soothed me as a kid.  The Secret Garden (that's my childhood copy, above), despite its tragic beginning, is about finding that serene place and letting it heal you, and it makes a great book to revisit in a small circle of reading light in the dark. That's just one example - there are lots of them, from Little House to Daddy-Long-Legs.

3.  Gentle, nostalgic humor.   The Peanuts  comic strips that I read and re-read as a kid return me to that safe happy time in my life.  BUT I stay away from biting, dysfunctional humor like Dilbert (which I love as a daytime read), and from anything political.  Dilbert takes me back to the total frustration of the workplace I used to inhabit, and even politics I agree with send me into that stressed feeling about the state of the world.

4.  Comfort Classics.  This will really vary from person to person, but here's what calms me down, and why:

       Jane Austen.  Emma is a delightful book, but takes concentration.  That's good.  In the middle of the night, I have the quiet around me to let me apply my mind to it.  I avoided this novel for years, until I made it an insomnia book, and found that the whole process of concentrating on it stopped the noise in my mind, and the novel was funny and warm while it did so.

      Robinson Crusoe.  One of my favorite books of all time.  Adventure is generally a bad idea, when it comes to sleep-aid books.  But most of Robinson Crusoe is a quiet journey of solitude and slow building.  Like being alone in the dark, Crusoe spends his time learning what matters and what he values, learning how to best use resources, and, most importantly, learning that the long hours alone are NOT useless time, but time when seeds are growing, and the future is building itself between human plantings and prunings and harvestings.  It's OK for nothing to seem to be happening.  It's OK to be alone with one's thoughts.  And it's OK for a store of grains and goods to grow at a natural pace, not all at once.  Crusoe's life is about making that happen over many years, not about having it in place all at once and then sitting and wondering  Now what do I do with my life?

5.  Poetry.  This one is impossible to make suggestions for, since different poets and types of poetry will speak to different people.  Classic poetry anthologies are good for me.  So are Denise Levertov's The Stream and the Sapphire,  and Mary Oliver's prose and poems, which often bring me serenity.

6.  Certain psalms.  I like the psalms in general, but many are cries of terrible pain and might not help with sleeplessness.  This varies from person to person, and some people might find that the psalms of cries to God really help during difficult life issues.  They certainly help me feel less alone, like others have made it through their own hard times with honest surrender to their need for help.  I prefer peaceful ones like the 23rd, for insomnia help.  I bookmark favorites to turn right to, in the middle of the night.

7.  Nature and science.  Now here's a category that you've really gotta personalize.  If there's some aspect of science and nature that fills you with serenity, a sleepless night is a great time to visit it.  Pictures of mountains?  Herbs and flowers? The vastness of the cosmos?

I love glaciers.  Where ice takes on a life of its own, where time slows to a crawl.  The same photos that might make you feel cold and stressed, make me feel calm.   You may prefer volumes on landscape gardens or penguins or wildflowers.  Find what works!

It's National Poetry Month! Quick, hide the poetry!

A facebook friend made me aware of a nifty interview with poet Mary Oliver in the April issue of O magazine.

The interview is online, but I liked it enough to buy the magazine. Oliver has heretofore been very private, despite being one of the rare poets who is both literary enough for the literary and accessible enough for popularity, and has won not just major awards but wide readership.

I have this bad tendency to pigeon-hole things, and I really have ignored O magazine because I thought it was strictly self-help. I got the issue and discovered that the Mary Oliver interview is the tip of the iceberg. There's a world more about Poetry Month in it -- a big section, including lots of poems, people talking about their favorites, Caroline Kennedy discussing poetry work with Bronx kids and several anthology projects, AND a profile of W. S. Merwin, who has restored a substantial patch of rainforest all by himself.

On the magazine's cover, you get "in this issue" blurbs for...

• being your best
  
• weight loss
• Oprah's journals (She and I are the same age, and this was actually quite interesting to me)
• optimism
• loving your work and getting rich from it
• eating well for $40.00 a week (Blogger Xtreme English skewers that one!)
• beauty products

And that's all.

You'd never know there was a whisper of poetry stuff in there.

My first reaction was, That's terrible! All this great poetry-related content and it doesn't even get ONE out of 7 cover teasers! Shows how literature don't get no respect.

Then I realized it could be a smart decision. Oprah is known for promoting books, including classics, so maybe the editors were over-protective of sales figures to fear that intellectual/literary stuff will scare people off, and maybe it couldn't have hurt to put on a cover line about "Mary Oliver - rare interview" or "W. S. Merwin restores a rainforest," but I have to praise the content. Maria Shriver was guest editor and did a smashing job.

Buy a magazine to help you improve your life and stumble on poetry. You could call this sneaky, or you could call it a workaround. Once they do buy it, how many people are going to find the poetry features quite engaging? And maybe read some poetry? And would they have missed out on something that's expanded their worlds, if they'd seen "poetry" on the cover and thought, "Meh. I'll buy InStyle instead" ?

I've read enough stacks of murder mysteries to both understand and cheer-lead for reading the not-difficult; for avoiding mental work during a stress-filled life and going for escape instead. In this sorrowful world, escape reading is tremendous gift, a very positive mental-vacation thing to avail oneself of. Of which to avail oneself. I really hate this syntax rule. It sounds snotty and stupid and is not necessary for meaning or clarity.

Hey, it's my blog and I'll digress if I want to.

Anyway, the deep rewards that come from a little mind-stretch now and then are a gift too. Reading something with more to think about isn't just Mental Spinach - It's Gross but Good For You! It can be likened to acquiring a taste for darker chocolate. I'm aggravatingly ADD and I've read embarrassingly little that's very mind-building, but when I do, it brings a smile to my heart that I can't even explain. Poetry is a succinct way to give the soul a chance to dance a little.

Bread and peace

[NOTE: This is a previously published entry, copied from my original blog.]
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Universal Prayer
Alexander Pope, 1738

Father of All! In every Age,
In every Clime adored,
By Saint, by Savage, and by Sage,
Jehovah, Jove, or Lord!

Thou Great First Cause, least understood:
Who all my Sense confined
To know but this, that Thou art Good,
And that myself am blind;

Yet gave me, in this dark Estate,
To see the Good from Ill;
And binding Nature fast in Fate,
Left free the Human Will.

What Conscience dictates to be done,
Or warns me not to do,
This, teach me more than Hell to shun,
That, more than Heaven pursue.

What Blessings thy free Bounty gives,
Let me not cast away;
For God is paid when Man receives,
T'enjoy is to obey.

Yet not to Earth's contracted Span
Thy Goodness let me bound,
Or think Thee Lord alone of Man,
When thousand Worlds are round:

Let not this weak, unknowing hand
Presume thy bolts to throw,
And deal damnation round the land,
On each I judge thy Foe.

If I am right, thy grace impart,
Still in the right to stay;
If I am wrong, oh teach my heart
To find that better way.

Save me alike from foolish Pride,
Or impious Discontent,
At aught thy Wisdom has denied,
Or aught thy Goodness lent.

Teach me to feel another's Woe,
To hide the Fault I see;
That Mercy I to others show,
That Mercy show to me.

Mean though I am, not wholly so,
Since quickened by thy Breath;
Oh lead me wheresoe'er I go,
Through this day's Life or Death.

This day, be Bread and Peace my Lot;
All else beneath the Sun,
Thou knowst if best bestowed or not,
And let Thy Will be done.

To thee whose Temple is all Space,
Whose Altar Earth, Sea, Skies!
One Chorus let all Being raise!
All Nature's Incense rise!

A poem

[NOTE: This is a previously published entry, copied from my original blog.]


I oughta save this for Mother's Day but
A. Mother's Day is a dumb Hallmark holiday anyway, and
B. it's a long ways off.

To say I know the poet would be kind of an exaggeration. We were co-staff members of a poetry magazine in college, only 6 of us, but she and I were not paired on a project. She's brilliant and shy and I never got to know her there. But I've watched with interest as her award-winning work has given me a glimpse into a talented mind and heart. Her books have a strong autobiographical thread through them and tell, among other things, about her deep desire to have a child. At the end of the last collection I felt so sorry that she was still waiting for her dream, and so happy when this new book arrived and I saw she finally, at age 45, had a son!

This poem, from that new book, made me smile.

CHERRIES

Rocked in my mother's pregnant amble,
and born into forty-five years in the dark,
the egg this child was also swayed in the arts
of lovers I took before you, fed with me

in the public markets of Baltimore and Denpasar
on oysters and rambutan, woke with me each year
to new waves of wander, fish and flower,
liqueur of each region, and bread of each village,

each cup of moonlight in the long sward
between my window and the Wannsee.
The egg he was heard the voices
of everyone I desired and held itself

in some deep hormonal bloom,
taking whatever was remarkable
in my life into its possibility.
We learned not to hurry in Balinese rain,

to listen for the rumble of wild boar
in the Malvan woods. We climbed
into planes bound for cities we'd never
visit again and skin we'd summon

with sobbing. And so, my husband,
as you dream of owning this child,
remember that he has ridden in my fire,
bathed in my blood, and sipped

at the breath I drew the first
time I saw what Rodin had clawed
from stone before he turned from Claudel
and went home for dinner and a clean shirt.

Remember that this child is collage
of everything before you, frangipani
and escargot, five-for-a-dollar boxes
of macaroni, and French cherries

from an old woman in Auvergne
who insisted on the gift
because it was so marvelous
to see a woman travelling alone.

-- Leslie Adrienne Miller

from The Resurrection Trade. Graywolf Press, 2007.

You can get the book at Books-a-Million, B&N, or Amazon.