06-05-15 Column

Kansas Snapshots by Gloria Freeland - June 5, 2015

Notes to myself

I get to sleep pretty quickly at night, providing I doze off before husband Art starts snoring. But it isn’t unusual for me to wake suddenly, sometimes after only an hour or so of sleep. I’m not sure what triggers this, but frequently my brain then goes into high gear thinking of all the tasks I need to complete the next day.

Art doesn’t understand why it bothers me to awaken in the middle of the night. He said when it happens to him, he rather enjoys the quiet, sometimes spending time solving design problems or working on mathematical equations.

Not me! I ruminate - going over and over tasks, sometimes working myself into a tizzy.

I used to slip out of bed when that happened. Guided by familiarity and by any bit of moonlight coming through our bedroom windows, I would find my way to the door. I’d wait for a particularly loud snore from Art before opening it so the noise wouldn’t awaken him. Once in the hallway, the bathroom night light lit the way to the living room. There I would head for my laptop, illuminated by the blue light on its charger. Seated comfortably in my rocker, I’d make lists of things to do, work on projects or send email messages.

But too often, Art would awaken and notice I was gone. Worried I might be ill, he would go looking for me. The main thing I learned from that experience is it’s not good to have two people in the same house who aren’t getting enough sleep.

When daughter Katie was a little girl, she sometimes complained about being unable to go to sleep. I suggested she think of a blank piece of paper to clear her mind.

“But then I just want to draw or write on it,” she protested.

I laughed - at the time. But I soon realized I must have that same propensity. So now, instead of wandering through the house at night, I keep a small note pad and pen on my bedside table. Whenever anything - and I mean anything - comes to mind, I reach over carefully so as not to disturb Art, and start scribbling things down. Unless the moonlight is particularly bright, I can’t see what I’m writing, so I write by “feel” and hope I’ll be able to read it the next morning. I’m careful to only jot down one or two items per page so I don’t overlap them. Then I tear the page off and drop it on the floor next to the bed. If more things then come to mind, I'll write another.

Among recent notes to myself:

Sometimes when I wake up the next morning, my feet come to rest on a virtual carpet of paper. The notes - a combination of errands to complete, work projects to handle and dates to remember - might be indecipherable to anyone else, but they are a sufficient memory-jogger for me. When I pick them up in the morning, I usually rewrite them to flesh them out a bit and make them legible.

But perhaps most important is that the transfer of these late-night random thoughts from brain to paper helps me relax and go to sleep.

I recently discovered that sister Gaila also keeps paper and a pen by her bed. She says she sits on the edge of the bed and uses her thumb to “feel” her way down the page as she writes things to do.

That made me laugh! This thing MUST be genetic.