TIME LAPSE AND VALIUM NIGHTS

I am a word junkie and must write now, shoot up with words, even though I cannot get on line. There is a time lapse between when I write these entries and post them. This is relevant only because though facts do not change, feelings do. So by the time you read this, the situation may no longer exist, the feelings may have passed, but recur, in another situation and at another time. Take insomnia, for example. It comes and goes, recurs periodically and the syndrome it causes or is caused by taps into and expresses a root that has existed since the time or even perhaps before I was born.   

My syndrome briefly is this: I am too tired to do anything and too awake to sleep, so I am compelled to lie in bed and experience all my neurosis. I call it a neurosis but it may better be called the human condition that we try to alleviate at the best of times with distractions and spirituality.  And the human condition is essentially uncertain. Things can and do change suddenly. All around us people fall sick and die. My current preoccupation with this subject stems from the possibility that my mother’s young maid, Revti, who my mother loves in her own way and relies upon heavily, may have cancer of the uterus. This is an all around concern for, practically, good maids are hard to come by; I am concerned for Revti, my mother, and most of all (as is always the case given our self referential selves), myself. Revki’s loss, even in the best case scenario where she has to have a hysterectomy and will return to work in two months, will cause me a great deal of trouble in my mind. Selfishly, I’m even thinking about having to give up my precious retreat in the mountain to come and tend to her. And my mother is not an easy person to tend to!

Anyhow, let me continue speaking about myself, the subject that preoccupies me the most. Sleepless nights, and the popping of a valium, and waking up with that gluggy, gummy feeling of neurons coated and synapses flooded with chewing gum mucous. Drugs are such a temporary fix and have less than desirable side effects. But they are god-sent on difficult nights. They hit you over your head and put you out, at least for a while.