Into the Mystery

For the past week or so I've been unable to sleep. Of course I get some sleep, but it is of the interrupted, short and tortured kind. Every night I go to bed and suffer two sorts of insomnia. First, I am unable to fall asleep. I lie in bed and toss and turn and my mind reufuses to settle. After what feels like hours eventually sleep takes me, but not for long. This is when the second shape of insomnia greets me and I wake up confused to see the numbers 00:44 on my phone. Then, later, 02:13...4:42...6:34. You get the idea.

So far the cause of this eludes me. Surely it must be indicative of some psychic or emotional disturbance, the provenance of which remains a mystery even to me. It is said that continued sleep deprivation over time results in a kind of cognitive atrophy — reasoning skills, decision-making, reaction-time, analytical emotional and creative faculties all wither away as you adjust to a new declining baseline. It seems so.

Yesterday I did some light stretching in the morning to help shake things up and stir something on a somatic level. Forward folds, a few sun salutations, cat-cows, child's pose. Five pushups. Today the tissues in my shoulders and chest feel like little elves used small metal rakes to agitate the muscle fibers in deep channels, awakening sensations I forgot I could have.

A friend's dad passed earlier this week; into the mystery. I spent much of my childhood around him. As kids we'd often hang out at the house so my friend's parents became like my second parents. Precise memories of that time are foggy — probably due to the sleep deprivation — but the feeling of being held and cared for remains. We'd sometimes take trips together, the bunch of us, to Six Flags. It was an American theme-park full of rollercoasters and rides that you'd spend the entire day at. I remember the countless times he'd driven me home at night. Out of all of us, I lived furtherest from my friend's house, so my friend's dad would spare me the 20–minute nighttime walk and drop me at my door. Small gestures of kindness. He had a lot of stories and was generally in good spirits. At least when we were around. A droll catchphrase, a favorite of his, used much of the time and delivered with comic mock menace: I'll crack yo head!

His death has left me with a sadness that hangs about me. It's moved me to look at my relationship with my own father, as if to say, 

time is limited: nobody's here forever. 

I was speaking to my dad yesterday on the phone while sitting in the sun drinking a cold beer. I told him about Alfredo's death and he said when he dies he wants to donate his body to science. I commended him and said, "that's really noble of you — maybe then we'll finally understand how to treat penile dwarfism."

"Yes! Exactly," he said, "exactly."