only sleeping

Yesterday – Monday – the word “Dozing” found its way into my life twice. Once very early, writing my Morning Pages, and here comes a vision of Alice (the Wonderland young lady) reading a book on a summer day, maybe she has company – her sister, her cat? – and she dozes off leaning against a summer tree. Much later in the day, listening to someone talk about being stuck in a cage with a crazed monkey – a metaphor for my monkey mind – and me thinking every once in a rare while the monkey dozes off, leaving something like quiet.

For a couple of years now, maybe a little more or less, I’ve been falling wildly asleep while drinking a middle-of-the-day coffee and reading in the lop-sided recliner, something I’ve regularly referred to as “coma-sleep”, which feels accurate, and, yet, this Tuesday morning appears as a kind and gentle act: there he goes again, dozing away.

John Lennon was clear he loved to sleep. Ann is clear she loves to sleep. Sleep for me has generally been more of a need it and like it event, in fact on days like today, up and out of the bed with the alarm at 2am, I love the sense, the clarity, of the day in all its glory and grace, spreading its vast arms out before me. “Here, kid. Come and join the party.”

Still, there’s the dozing thing, which likely’s just a re-charge, and other times, when I’m lucky, a mystical ticket into places wild and generous beyond my usual what’s-next mind.