Tag Archives: breathing

Good Night, Sleep Tight. All Right?

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Last night, crabby me; lucky me, maybe, because it was for a good cause, but I did not enjoy the sleep study. I was getting tested for sleep apnea, though both the doctor and I suspect it’s more likely new allergies are the impediment to my night breathing and sleep. It was genuinely interesting to have the nice and friendly technician, Mohammad, explain to me all that was being monitored as he wired me up (dang! A perfect Selfie op missed!), including not only my breathing and pulse oxygen levels and heart rate but also limb motion for possible restless-leg syndrome, and EEG to see whether I have any detectable brain activity at any time. Unlikely, as you all know.

But I also wasn’t supremely keen on driving a half hour on our yucky under-construction-ripped-up-everywhere freeway to the lab and back—in an incipient thunderstorm on the return—for a wonderfully UN-restful 9:30 pm-5 am “sleep” that probably totaled about 5 hours of actual unconsciousness. For a person who craves 9-11 hours at a minimum (also a reason for the apnea testing), not my idea of restful. Getting awakened in the pre-dawn dark and effectively kicked out of the house is not my favorite thing even when I know it’s to take off for a fabulous vacation! This morning, of course, in addition to knowing I was going to have a very short night, I was freezing under a skinny blanket with the ceiling fan helicoptering madly over my head, and was told to stay on my back the whole time, too, my least common or favored sleeping position in the first place. I sure hope I’m right about not having apnea, ’cause then I don’t have to go back next week and do this again but with a night breathing Apparatus being fitted.

Although it was almost worth it all to get home and look in the mirror while I washed up and see what looked like humongous globs of snot here and there in my hair. Good thing the scalp sensors are glued on with water-soluble stuff!!! Something sort of like the old-fashioned butch wax my spouse and many of his pals used to groom their flattop haircuts when they were kids. Scrub, scrub, scrub. The body sensors were attached with a more typical bandage adhesive, so they just left grimy circles of a suction-cup sort here and there on my shoulders and legs. So many remembrances of my special time. Here’s to this being a one-time thing.

Needless to say, back home at 6:30 this morning, I washed my snotty hair and piled right into my own bed for another 5 hours, my actual night’s sleep. And then took a 2 hour nap late in the afternoon to top it off. Don’t want to be too tired to sleep through the whole night tonight, no matter how clear my breathing is. I have priorities, you know.Digital illo: Sleeping Beauty

A Pearl Dropping into a Well

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graphite drawingWhen the singing is sublime, it’s as though everything else stops. The air ceases to move. Thought stills. Time ripples ever more slowly and delicately, and only beauty exists.

When a singer’s voice takes hold and sways me, I imagine a pearl dropping into a deep, deep well. Its subtly rich sheen and its smooth look of perfection rolls at speed through the air yet seems to flow through it with an attenuated grace as though purity and love buoyed it up delicately and cradled it gently downward. At last, reaching the depths, the note, the pearl, begins its plunge–the fulness of the water embraces its fall–the ear draws in the note and pulls it soul-ward.

When the choir breathes out in flawless song, I am lost in the jeweled depths. Gorgeous and welcoming, the magnificent impossibility of such beautiful sound carries me, too, in its cradling care. And I fall–in darkness, in love, in joy.

I Close My Eyes

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photoI close my eyes.

Breathe. Breathe, and think nothing–deliberately think nothing: not thoughts about nothingness, but no thinking. Just feel. Feel my breathing. Let it slow and deepen. Sense how my lungs are filling and how cool and soothing the air can be. Feel the inside of my eyelids becoming less dry and harsh, softening with the renewing almost-tears that mark the relief of closing my eyes after too little sleep and too long a day to follow it. Breathe.

I can smell the familiar scent of my freshly washed shirt collar that’s pulled up close to my chin, not because I’m cold but because it’s a favorite and a comfortable, so-soft shirt. All I hear is the gentle whirring of the air through the house, the light flickering of leaves outside the window in the slightest breeze, and a bird not far away, practicing its sweet and simple arias without tiring. The sun’s warmth, coming in the window, is blushing its way through my eyelids but still I keep my eyes lightly closed. I am content to maintain my steady breaths, my slowness, my calm, my emptiness, and simply to feel. My pulse ticks softly, steadily, unhurried.

There is no need to think of anything just now. Nothing I could think would change what is real in my world or better my place in it, at the moment, so it is good to turn off the thinking and just let go of my usual tense grip on it all for a little while. The world will wait for me.

I can visit other worlds if I like. Sometimes, with my eyes closed, I will. I can make such wonderful worlds inside, when I wish.

But for now, what I want most is this silence that I have sorted out from what’s outside of me; these slow and steady and uncomplicated open spaces I am cultivating and embracing on the inside. The warmth of the sun, through glass, caressing my face. The depth of soothing air moving through my lungs in a grateful, peaceful sigh.

Everything that must Happen and Change and Do will have to wait for me while I am so very un-busy just being. That is enough for now; sitting, eyes closed, breathing, silent, open. For now, that is everything.photo