When Sleep May Come

During the greater part of my life I did not think very much about sleep. I just slept. At the close of any day, I would change—sometimes at the direction order of my parents—into nightwear, wash the day off of my face, brush my teeth, get into my bed, lay my head upon my pillow, close my eyes and sleep until morning After I learned to read I would take the book to bed, prop up some support for my body and read. My parents never entered my bedroom to tell me to put the book away and go to sleep. At some point during the reading, my eyes would dim; my mind would fog and I would gently place the bookmark at the page I had reached, turn off the bed side light, put the book atop the headboard and rest my head gently on the pillow. As if by magic it would be morning save for the occasional nightmare. No sleep aids, anxiety medications, aspirins for the day’s efforts: just sleep into which I would unthinkingly drift. I did not think about sleep, did not feel anxious regarding it; did not worry that I would not sleep. I just fell asleep. 

    Now I am old and sleep has become a more complicated event and fraught with its own anxieties. On the bedside table I place my night medications: I split the trazodone tablet in half, take the first half to let me sleep and reserve the other half for when I awaken in the middle of the night and cannot return to sleep. On the bedside table are two acetaminophen tablets for the ache of my trigeminal neuralgia and a glass of water to get the tablets down. Also by the bedside shelf sits a box of tissues, lip balm, a case for my glasses; reading material I will store in what Levenger’s refers to as a reader’s toolbox. It is filled with more than is ever necessary in the moment . . . books, periodicals, pens and my journal . . . who knows what might be required during the day or night? I keep the toolbox placed by the bed in case sleep does not come and I lay awake. I worry about tomorrow. But on a good night I drop the book or journal of the moment into the slot of the reader’s toolbox reserved for it. Then I pull a pillow which has been designated as a cushion for my knees—I am a side sleeper—to prevent a painful ache that I would suffer in the morning as a consequence of one knee having rested heavily upon the other as I sleep in a semi-fetal position. I haven’t the slightest idea what causes this discomfort but I tend to blame most of such issues to the process of aging. Somewhere I read that aging is not a tragedy; it is a farce!

Having set a conducive environment for sleep and tossed aside the pillow that has supported me while I read, I settle down under the covers with my head on the remaining pillow. I toss and turn restlessly searching for the perfect sleep position for the moment. Sometimes, I have forgotten to use the bathroom before bedtime and so I have to reverse the routine, rise up and attend to my body’s demands, then return and repeat the bedtime routine, this time without the support pillows for reading, though I may require five minutes of reading something to calm me again from the exertions resulting from the journey to the bathroom. I do this added reading in a mostly supine position holding the material up toward the ceiling. I have already swallowed my tablets of sleep aids but they are not quick acting nor always effective, but I again lay my head upon my pillow but still require something to calm my mind. I sing to myself from a repertoire of often imperfectly remembered songs. On a good night I might finish one selection and get midway through a second before I slip into unconscious sleep, certainly to dream. My dreams are consistent but this is not the venue for their narration or interpretation. 

I awaken during the night more often than I would like—from dreams and bodily needs—and at some point worried that I will not fall back asleep, I take the second half of the trazodone and pull out the playlist for my encore. I sing unvocalized a selection I might remember but hope will not complete. Eventually I fall back asleep but awaken too early when the sky is still dark and even the nearby airport is quiet. I plan the time for a nap.

Maybe the innocence of childhood renders sleep invisible; sleep just was and did not require further thought. Without consciousness of or much bother about it, sleep often lasted through the night. It required no aids or counting sheep or singing sotto voce. I know that there are children whose innocence has been stolen from them, and I don’t know how sleep appears to them. But for me now, an admittedly privileged older man, sleep is a complicated event for which complexities and evasions I had not prepared. In any case, I go to bed too early and awaken too soon. The idea of sleep rests heavy on my mind the way it never did in my childhood or my youth, but as I aged sleep became a matter I might obsess about, trouble my self and my partner about and render the event too visible and thereby less accessible. In Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead the Reverend Ames who has heard a great many confessions says, “There is a lot under the surface of life, everyone knows that. A lot of malice and dread and guilt, and so much loneliness, where you really would expect to find it either.” Life often troubles my days and keeps me up at night. 

Destroying the World to Save Himself

Here is today’s news headlined in the New York Times: “President Trump threatened to wipe out a ‘whole civilization,’ and the United States hit military targets on Iran’s main oil export hub, as Trump ramped up pressure on Tehran to fully open the Strait of Hormuz or potentially face a wave of strikes on critical infrastructure in the coming hours. Mr. Trump issued the grave warning in a post on social media on Tuesday as a new round of attacks was launched across the Middle East. The U.S. attacked Kharg Island, the export hub, Israel and Iran launched fresh attacks and Israel’s military warned Iranians to avoid traveling by train. The increasingly incendiary threats and the intense fighting reinforced the fragile state of diplomacy, with no public signs of a diplomatic breakthrough to end the war.” I am reminded of the fear that gripped the world during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 when the threat of nuclear war and world destruction seemed imminent. On Easter Sunday a president of the United States and reputed world leader wrote, “Open the fucking Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell. JUST WATCH.” The obscenity laced threat can be spoken by low-life’s and belongs in the garbage strewn gutters and dark corners and not in the delicate and crucial public forums of diplomacy and negotiation. What is obscene is not only the language but the intent. And of course, the source the obscenity laced discourse. But I recognize in his threat a textbook example of the defensive psychological disorder called projection in which an individual unconsciously assigns their own unacceptable thoughts, feelings or impulses to avoid anxiety or loss of self-esteem. I am wondering, who exactly is the crazy bastard here? Today Trump threatened to wipe out a whole civilization and prophesized that it will never recover. He threatened, “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again . . .” Most of what he threatens is defined as war crimes. But his language suggests that he is already destroying civilization. 

Trump’s threats remind me of the words and events in the Hebrew bible. In Genesis God destroys humankind f with the flood for their depravity and immoral acts. In Exodus God threatens to destroy the freed slaves who have worshipped the golden calf. “I see that this is stiffnecked people. Now let Me be, that My anger may blaze forth against them and that I may destroy them . . .” In Numbers God threatens to destroy the people after the report by the spies deters the Israelites from entering the Land. And in Deuteronomy, Moses warns the people that their disobedience will lead to their destruction. By the flood God succeeds in wiping out civilization; in the latter instances Moses is able to convince God not to destroy the people, and I hold in my mind an image of God sulking back to his room and feeling that his compliance is emblem of his ultimate weakness. God accuses the Israelites of being stiffnecked that I take to be a synonym for the child’s expletive, doody-head!

            Trump is not God though he does seem in his threats to mimic God’s words and in his actions to presume God’s power. But as God in the Hebrew Bible is often petulant and petty demanding absolute submissiveness and strict obedience, threatening destruction for disobedience; so is Trump petulant and petty threatening destruction for disobedience that is only a synonym for disloyalty. I think of the Red Queen who orders “Off with their heads!” Unlike God, however, Trump actually has the power to destroy civilization to protect his megalomaniacal belief in his absolute power and indestructability. What I am saying is that Trump’s narcissism and megalomania threatens not just the Iranian civilization but that of all humanity. To save himself Trump would sacrifice the world. Trump’s narcissism is not a tragic flaw: it is a serious psychological condition that defines every act from his very limited and self-serving perspective in which he can define himself as the greatest President in American history with permission to do whatever he wants with impunity. He is mad and maddening; he is a danger to all civilization.