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Monday, 6 August 2007
Night Thoughts
Dear Diary,
Nil aon tintean, mar do tintean fein
An Irish saying.
(There’s no fireside like your own fireside).
Quite appropriate considering the summer we are having.
This is a little blog that was blogged in the early hours of Sunday morning. I am a little late in posting, please forgive me.
Last night I was overcome by sleepfullness. Yes I know there is no such word but sometimes I love making up words and if you can have sleeplessness why not the opposite? My eyes kept closing and I had to go to bed at an unearthly hour (what exactly is an unearthly hour? Is it another planet’s time?), eight o’clock to be precise!
Sleeplessness struck at 2 am. And They all came early. Those 4 am moments when doom n’ gloom, blackness and worry seep into one’s thoughts and dreams. Dread comes calling at these unholy hours along with crazy imaginings and needless worry over things that might happen. Also regret over things that have happened and can’t be changed. Some things that I may have had control over but didn’t exert it. Some things that should never have happened, my mind runs riot here in its meanderings. Foot and mouth is on my mind and I think of all those thousands of cattle and sheep culled in 2001. I then go on to think sad thoughts: missing children, the shooting of an innocent man (seven times), the invasion of Iraq. Serious worries. Then I go on to the ‘lighter’ ones things like journalists who upset folk with their easy-speak and their labelling. Some of you will know what I mean. God I hate the labelling of people, the all-too-neat compartmentalisation of folk into other folk’s previously selected ‘classes’ and ‘creeds‘.
I get up and pour myself a drink of the red stuff, no not wine just ultra health-giving cranberry juice, but even that causes worry to surface as I see on the label that it contains that cyanide stuff that is supposed to cause cancer. Talking of which, I read recently that to prevent breast cancer recurring I must get sunlight on my skin. Some hopes in this summer we are having. Even the sky was crying yesterday. It was a sunless day and for locals here in Wales, as well as Foot and Mouth to worry about there was a shocking defeat at rugby and to England…….. of all the teams they had to lose to….. I didn’t see the match, probably just as well.
Why is it that the wee small hours bring along with them the Great Big Worries? Something is telling me to Log On so I do what any self-respecting Purplecooer would do. I give in easily to temptation. I wrap myself in my warmest dressing gown, take my drink and go upstairs and sit by the computer. There is one joyous thing, a bright moon is illuminating my little study and it lightens the space through the window by the desk. It is so bright that I wonder if it did in fact awaken me in the first place.
Joy. I have two more comments to read on my latest blog. One from ‘Irish Eyes’ a fellow blogger from my spiritual home across the water. She has sent me an Irish quotation (see above). One comment also from dear Woozle. Both are lovely comments that cheer me and so my mood is already being transformed. How blessed I am to have comforting contact with two friends in the middle of the night, just when I need it.
That will have to be my first blessing. The second is the sunshine that does come after the rain as it always does. The third is enjoying time with the family again after what seems such a long time. The fourth is a funny book I am reading (see list). The fifth is the fact that I have two weeks off now.
Please let the sun shine.
So I’ll love you and leave you and will soon be making my way back to bed. First I’ll find you a poem to hopefully cheer you and me.
Sweet Dreams And Happy Memories
Sweet dreams and happy memories,
A love that's good and true;
A home to care for tenderly;
A song to sing that's new
Sweet dreams and happy memories
And friends to join in mirth
Some tears to give to those who die,
And smiles to greet each birth.
Sweet dreams and happy memories,
To win a game or two.
The faith to know that Spring will come,
The strength to wait it through.
Sweet dreams and happy memories,
To do what there's to do
For joy is living day to day,
To make sweet dreams come true.
Doris Reed Tietz
Bye for now,
Caitx
So, I'm not the only one up and wandering at 4 in the morning. I sometimes fall back asleep, but usually give in and get up. In some ways I love my home even more at that early hour, when I have the world to myself. Yes, worries come running in all to easily in the wee hours, but I have also found that some of my best ideas, my keenest thoughts come at that time too. Is it all about receptivity? Am I sharper at dawn? Are you?
ReplyDeleteLovely blog, again. I look forward to hearing your take on the poem regarding which you asked me to comment.
Those are the strange nightime moments, when nothing seems quite real.
ReplyDeleteYes, worries, but also time on your own to slowly think through things.
Caitx, what is it about the witching hours that can make thoughts so black.
ReplyDeleteOnce you start down that route there seems to be no turning back. Thanks goodness for purple coo.
When I get caught with dark thoughts in the night, I try to repeat to myself that 'it will seem a bit better in the morning', and it usually is.
Sorry to hear you didn't have a good night's sleep, but so nice that you had the friendly comments from the purplecooers to cheer you up! Hope you have a better rest tonight x
ReplyDeletethose awful nightime demons that chase and chase around your mind giving you no peace !! why do they do it???
ReplyDeletewell I was there at 4am as well...isn't in Desiderata..the darkest hour is just before the dawn....? It wasnt just dark it was pitch black!!! Perhaps we ought to have a forum for the 4am brigade!
ReplyDeleteCount me in. Dark thoughts and worries, yes, but also, sometimes, peace and creativity. I remember when my two were babies - I always felt so alone, thinking I was the only person up - in fact there is a whole community of insomniacs up and about! I do love that picture.
ReplyDeleteah there is no darker time than 3 o'clock in the morning, cait. in late june and until mid-july it's not so bad because you know light will be coming soon. but in winter....oh.....it's a hard time to be awake.
ReplyDeleteyou make your nest by the computer sound so snug and warm, though. and you do have a wide range of blog friends across the world who are with you in thought and spirit.
Good blog Cait! Sometimes I wake but I never get up cos if I did it would disturb Yorkie and I dont want him up in the night! If I have worries I repeat the saying 'All will be well, and all will be well and all manner of things will be well' - not sure if thats right, think I got it from Simple Abundance - it was quoted in that.
ReplyDeleteI love that poem, thank you for printing it to let us read with you.
ReplyDeleteI think making up words is a great way to write! Very theraputic. Perhaps we should start a purplecoo dictionary with our own words!
Crystal xx
Oh Cait, that picture of Bedtime Story is so lovely, thank you for sharing it with us. I will come back here tomorrow Cait to finish reading, apologies, but have had a rather stressful day, and need to get to bed, heck it's 1.12am in the morning! I just wanted to say I love your writing, stories, music, poems.
ReplyDeleteCamilla.xx
Count me in for the 'awake in the night club' I'm going to learn that poem from one of my previous blogs of by heart.
ReplyDeleteOh those cold morning hours. Do I lie in bed and hope to back to sleep whilst my mind races on - or do I get up and have a hot drink, or cranberry juice. Did you get back to sleep in the end ok?
ReplyDeleteThank you for the picture - such a lovely cosy picture. How childhood should be.
Hello again Dear Cait, night time is the only time lately when I can get my relaxing moments, always seem to be so busy during the day. Have my dogs to keep me company, they are usually tucked up in their blankets on Chesterfield sleeping like babies. Plenty of hot tea, and just knowing maybe that there is a purple friend out there somewhere. I thought your picture was so lovely of BEDTIME STORY, all snug and cosy. Hope you have a better night's sleep tonight Cait, sweet dreams.
ReplyDeleteCamilla.xx
Dear Cait,
ReplyDeleteI have blogged my 5 moodbusters ..but i dont think you can get a link yet to my blogg page!I wondered if I paste them to you blogg you could maybe somehow save them...don't know what elseto do ....hope you don't mind me taking up the space in your comment s box...or you could delete them and I will check with WW again as to how to gain accses..I am having a bit of trouble understaning all this new technoligy...new to all this blogging stuff....x Onceinabluemoon...1/..Walking the dogs in a wonderful woodland...smelling the warm earth rising beneath the layer of crisp leaves scattered accross the ground ,making a carpet of natural brilliant colour....And as I walk alone in this magical place I shut out the world and become a child again..kicking and shuffling the leaves as I go.....searching for mushrooms and fungi...and finding a fairy ring of red toadstools....making a wish for better days ahead for all my family...
Then looking upwards towards the umberella of trees, with the crisp morning sun filtering shafts of light through the branches,casting shadows that give a wonderful changing display of dancing woodland dust in the air...and finding a red squirell collecting his nuts and watching him store them to eat later..
I just loose myself in my woodland hideaway..and come home feeling refreshed and ready to cope with the day ahead...knowing that I will be back tomorrow.....
2/The smell of clean washing ,hanging out on a spring morning,and just standing back and looking at all the lovely white cotten sheets as they blow in the warm wind.....
3/Baking cakes that resemble rubber balls....but enjoying them anyway....topped with runny chocolate .......pure bliss...
4/Taking the time out from being a mummy...and talking to my children like frends...having fun and telling naughty jokes...jumping on the beds....and buying munchies to watch a movie on TV..all cozied up in our jammies.....on the sofa with lots of pillows and fresh smelling quilts ....
5/Having the day to myself at home....radio turned up loud ...cleaning out all the kitchen cupboards...and throwing out all the junk...scouring the place from floor to ceiling...including the window ...so that I can see out to the hills, without looking through spots of grime and dried in washing up liquid...buying a cheap set of cutlery..at Tescos..and some new teatowels..
Then put everything all back neatly in it's place ....stand back and have a look ...savour the moment....for a while anyway ..until they all come home and wreck it again...and that night buy a fish supper for all of us and eat out of the newspaper..with our hands..drinking a cold glass of coke into the bargain...oh yes that`ll do for it for me .......
Lovely blog, Cait, though sad, too.
ReplyDelete(Is it an Irish sadness, I wonder? One of my grandmother's was Irish, from County Cork. Her maiden name was Ahern, which allows me to joke that I must be related to the Taoiseach.
I too have sleepless nights, though I never seem to have the energy to get up and do something.
Hello Dear Cait,
ReplyDeleteCould you please let me know the name of the Artist of THE BEDTIME STORY, Thank you Cait, such a lovely picture.
Camilla.x
Why is it 4 am when the black moods strike? Next time it happens to me I think I'll log on to Purplecoo and see if anybody else is about! I sometimes use the Bach flower remedy White Chestnut which does seem to work. As does daylight! Why do things always seem 'blacker' in the dark? I loved your made up word too.
ReplyDelete