Tell Me When You’re Sleeping
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The last few days have been a bit heavy, their waters rippled with worry familiar and foreign. Despite the surplus of seasonal sunshine, sogginess has pervaded many moments. Smiles have been there, here, but sometimes forced. There are things, so many things, spiky and scraggly and real, bobbing under the surface. Things I’d like to say. To release.
This? This feeling? It is nothing major. It is life. Life does not boast smooth edges and permanent rainbows. Life is shot through with a universal gray that at once soothes and confuses. Life is clouded with questions, questions that nip at us, questions that make us look in. Questions that exhaust us.
And so. I am here. Being characteristically vague. Waiting for the time when I can articulate the passing fog more clearly, when I can give the questions life on the screen. I am here. Because this is a good place, a place where my words can hang until they make better sense.
I am here.
Last night, we enjoyed a big family dinner out. The girls behaved for the most part and ate well. I sat in my seat, playing with my angel hair, and my mind rumbled with inchoate thoughts about assumption and reality, about perception and place. It is amazing how we can be in two spots at once. In a restaurant and in an existential tunnel. We humans are indeed skilled creatures.
Back home. We tucked the girls in. In their new purple room. They were giddy still from the lemon sorbet, but they did not fight us as we flipped the light and whispered goodnight. For the next forty minutes, we listened to them on the monitor as they talked, and winded down. Their voices, sweet and unique, wrapped around one another. They had things to say. The stints of silence grew longer as time passed.
At one point, Toddler said something that made me smile. Something little and big, so silly and so serious. Something I will never forget.
“Tell me when you’re sleeping.”
At this order, Baby said it. “Okay.”
I love that my little girl said this. That she made this request, this impossible request. I love even more that she had no clue about the impossibility inherent in her words, that there are times when we cannot articulate our state of being. Because, simply, we are not awake.
Or because we are confused, weighed down by life.
I think of their voices, little and melodic, and a smile appears. A real one. Unforced and golden. It lingers now as my fingers dance.
Even when life gets tricky, even when our minds are mangled with gray, there are things, sweet things, rainbow things, that cut through the clouds.
Thank you, girls.
- Are you ever weighed down by a temporary and largely inexplicable existential fog?
- Are there things in your life that snap you out of your own introspection?
- Have your kids ever said any silly and genius things that you will never forget?
- How often are you in two places at once?
- Do you celebrate or curse life’s intermittent grays? (I do both.)
I have had more than a few moments where I felt like life was happening around me. I dislike that immensely, what is the point of living if we don’t experience it.
So I always make an effort to be present in whatever it is I am doing. Things happen too quickly and we’ll miss them- especially when it comes to our children.
I do agree that presence should be a primary goal for all of us. These days, with the ubiquity of technology and distractions, it is so easy to be pulled away and this is troublesome.
What’s interesting though (to me) is that this is not what I would describe as an instance of “life happening around me.” I guess I think that the inner turmoil is as much a part of life and who we are as the external happenings and experiences in life. I do honestly marvel at our consistent ability to tend to emotional fires, weak and raging, while also participating in our moments.
I do worry though and constantly about missing things particularly with my kids.
This may be my favorite post of yours ever. It so perfectly captures an enigmatic feeling that we’ve all experienced at some time or another. Being in two places at once – trapped between here and there – is not easy on the mind or spirit. But sometimes just marching to a place of concrete understanding isn’t an option. We have to float along in the seas of grey for a while first. I’d throw you raft if I had one.
That this post ranks among your favorites means a lot to me, Gale. A lot. What’s interesting is that this post really wrote itself. I holed myself up in my brand new office (!) and just let my fingers go. I didn’t know where this post would take me. Just that I wanted to record Toddler’s line for posterity. This is one of the reasons I see myself blogging for a long time. By blogging, I am feeling my way through the fog that is so often life. And the fog is not always ominous or oppressive. But it does invariably make it harder to see.
I will accept your virtual rafts any day. Thank you
This is one of my favorite posts as well. Sometimes the gray seems to be all there is–the absence of the right choice, the right answer. I recently made a major life choice about having a family while single and have acted on it. Now I am struck by all the gray as to whether this was the right choice, the right decision, how my life will change and will it be for the better. Then again, without the grays along the way, I never would have gotten to where I am now, and now is good. But how I wish I knew the right answer.
Thank you, Louise. There is something tough about gray, about the utter lack of black and white particularly when it comes to big life decisions. It’s strange (or maybe not) but I have really come to accept the gray. As a writer and mother and person, I see gray as evidence of complexity and change. When I feel the way I do today I know that my mind is wrestling bigger things and that greater understanding – of self, and other, and existence – is waiting on the other end. And so. I have come to accept this temporary uncertainty, this fading fog.
I do hope you are able to go comfortable with the grays in your skies too. Oh, and there is never a right answer when it comes to grander, meaningful things. Never.
Oh, I love this. I remember sleepovers as a young girl and similar questions. Sigh.
I’m having my own undercurrents of anxiety and jagged edges lately, and so I relate to what you are saying. One thing I know, I guess, is that they will pass. But that doesn’t mean I much like the interval.
Thanks, as always, for your companionship here and in life
xox
Yes, knowledge that these moments, these soggy dips in life, are not remotely permanent is so critical. Knowing that they are temporary actually makes me embrace these gray and grainy moments a bit more. I feel that these times are often fertile ground for self-knowledge. As for your companionship here and beyond? Priceless, my dear
Definitely know the fog feeling, haha check out my blog today if you want to know what kind of fog I’ve been in for the past few weeks. I think I’m finally coming out of it, and that is worth celebrating. Once the fog has cleared I’m always at least a little conscious of the fact that I would not know what joy felt like without a little sad and disconnected.
I could not agree more. Sadness and disconnection do serve an important purpose. They make the joyful moments that much more pronounced and magical. Life without contrast is not life is it?
I dislike those intense fogs. Its the uncertainty of the feeling that makes me so down. I know I will eventually come out of it, but can’t seem to remember this when I am experiencing it. Hope you are able to immerse yourself into some sunshine soon.
Oddly, I do not hate these intense fogs. They are unsettling, yes, but for me they are a reminder of life’s layers. Of the fact that happiness is not a possession that sits and glitters on a high shelf, but something that is tethered to who we are as we navigate our days. As long as we are creatures who ask questions and care deeply about their answers, answers that will sometimes dodge us, I think we will have off days. I am learning to accept this a bit more. It does help to write about the layers. Ultimately, for me, existential fog makes for good material.
This is absolutely lovely. And a perfect example of the one thing that always cuts through the dark times, and the grays. My children. Their clarity, their imagination, their humor.
Bask in the beauty of those little girls. It’s so precious. And they grow quickly.
It gives me consistent and powerful joy to know that my kids will always be able to cut through the grays of life and make me smile. This is immensely encouraging. And I do bask in the beauty of my tiny creatures. I try to even when they frustrate and exhaust me. Because I am all too aware of time and how it has a way of speeding by.
As always, thanks for your well-chosen words and wisdom. I hope you and your boys are well.
This happens to me more time than I’d like to admit. I call it being trapped in my head. Thankfully it usually only lasts for a day, so I can move on and fully be part of my life again.
Trapped in my head. Exactly. But I guess if there is a place to be trapped, that’s not the worst place. I think, really, that we have so much going on in our minds – a mixture of memories and dreams, hopes and fears – that it makes sense that we retreat there from time to time. Maybe, just maybe, this is part of what it means to be human?
Of this I am acutely familiar.
I think many of us probably are familiar with this. Honestly, this is one of my very favorite parts of blogging, namely putting into words what I am experiencing, the struggles that inevitably crop up, and realizing that I am far from alone.
This is incredibly beautiful.
Thank you, Kate. Coming from you, a beautiful poet and wordsmith, this means a great deal.
“Tell me when you’re sleeping.” Oh that’s just too sweet. I also listen to my little boys banter once the lights are out. There is no monitor in their room so I don’t hear specific words in their conversation, but I hear the giggles between them and that is enough.
As long as noone comes OUT of the room the whole routine is sweetness, you know?
Your comment strikes something in me. Because it is not just about the discrete words. It is about the music, the melody, of youth. There is something immensely soothing and surreal about taking in this music and realizing that, ultimately, we created it. And, yes, it is always an added bonus when no one escapes!
i posted about this… but not about this, yesterday as well. about being here but also there… one place, but distracted with another.
this was really pure and came from a good place.
i can feel it.
I love your post, Nic. I think we are complex beings and we are in so many places at once – the past, the present, the future and so many other good and tough spots. We must allow ourselves to flit between these worlds, to do the best we can with the uncertainty of it all.
I’ve never heard a better description of life than “a largely inexplicable existential fog.” That’s great. I’m smiling and giggling a little. It’s all transitory stuff. I try not to take it too seriously.
If I didn’t write, though, those grays (greys? Do you know the difference? I use “gray” when I want a negative connotation and “grey” when I want a positive one.) would overwhelm me, and they have done so when I neglect the creative exercise. At the very least, putting words on paper extracts something tangible from the fog.