{"id":23,"date":"2015-03-23T04:02:48","date_gmt":"2015-03-23T04:02:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kathrynberlabooks.wordpress.com\/?p=23"},"modified":"2015-03-23T04:02:48","modified_gmt":"2015-03-23T04:02:48","slug":"sleeplessness-originally-published-october-26-2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kathrynberlabooks.com\/index.php\/2015\/03\/23\/sleeplessness-originally-published-october-26-2011\/","title":{"rendered":"Sleeplessness (originally published October 26, 2011)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"dreamingofsnowwhitefranzschrotzberg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\nLast night I couldn\u2019t fall asleep which is not at all an uncommon event.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t always that way.\u00a0 When I was younger I slept with no awareness of the world around me.\u00a0 I slept so soundly that my dreams were long played out and already forgotten by the time I woke.\u00a0 Twelve hours on a weekend was not unusual for me when I was younger.<\/p>\n

Close to thirty years ago crying newborn babies began to wake me at regular intervals during the night.\u00a0 Later they transformed into little children with bad dreams or nighttime stomach aches.\u00a0 By the time they had grown out of being novice teenage drivers with a world of dangers waiting at every traffic light, my brain had forgotten how to sleep.\u00a0 Or at least it had trained itself to rouse me at the slightest noise or mildest provocation\u2026 a random thought for instance.<\/p>\n

So last night when I couldn\u2019t sleep it was not a surprise.\u00a0 My shoulder ached on this side.\u00a0 My hip ached on that side.\u00a0 Did I turn the oven off?\u00a0 Did I turn the dishwasher on?\u00a0 What happened after the movie credits rolled last night?\u00a0 Did the characters ever find their way to Oregon?<\/p>\n

And so on.<\/p>\n

But I would lie here in the dark with my thoughts.\u00a0 At least my body is resting, I reasoned.<\/p>\n

The sudden mildly stinging sensation in the corner of my eye brought my hand instinctively to my face.\u00a0 And in that reflexive motion, I realized that I was holding onto something warm and wiggly\u2013 a very small man, no bigger than my thumb, lilac in color\u00a0with a tiny golden messenger bag slung across his shoulder.<\/p>\n

I held him firmly but carefully, not wishing to cause him any harm.\u00a0 His gossamer wings were beating wildly so I tucked them down\u00a0into my palm to keep them safe.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo this is what gossamer wings look like,\u201d\u00a0 I marveled.\u00a0 \u201cI never knew that\u00a0the Sandman could fly.\u201d<\/p>\n

His large dark eyes looked up at me pleadingly and I felt a twinge of regret.\u00a0 His tiny heart was visibly pounding underneath the surface of his translucent flesh.\u00a0 His fragile body trembled so violently that it set my hand to vibrating.<\/p>\n

I looked over at my husband who was soundly sleeping.\u00a0\u00a0I couldn\u2019t bear to wake him.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut just imagine his surprise when he sees what I\u2019ve caught,\u201d\u00a0 I reasoned.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlease,\u201d I whispered to the little man. \u201cJust until tomorrow morning, and then I promise I\u2019ll let you go.\u201d<\/p>\n

He looked defeated and demoralized.\u00a0 He knew what this meant and so did I.\u00a0 A lot of people would go without sleep tonight.<\/p>\n

Still\u2026 how many opportunities will a person have in a lifetime to hold magic in her hands?<\/p>\n

The next morning I woke with a start.\u00a0 My hand was curled in a loose fist that had opened like a blossoming rose in the middle of the night.\u00a0\u00a0Random sprinkles of golden powder glittered on my knuckles, spilled from his\u00a0bag as he had worked his way loose.<\/p>\n

In the end I was left with just my shame and a lingering question.<\/p>\n

Would he forgive me my trespass against him?\u00a0 Or would I be condemned to a lifetime of sleeplessness for that one selfish act?\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last night I couldn\u2019t fall asleep which is not at all an uncommon event. It wasn\u2019t always that way.\u00a0 When I was younger I slept with no awareness of the world around me.\u00a0 I slept so soundly that my dreams were long played out and already forgotten by the time I woke.\u00a0 Twelve hours on…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynberlabooks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynberlabooks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynberlabooks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynberlabooks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynberlabooks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynberlabooks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynberlabooks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynberlabooks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynberlabooks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}