Things that Go Pacing in the Night

Posted September 7th, 2008 by JennyWren

February 23, 2007

I did my (hopefully) last rounds for the night, and took a peek out the door before turning off the porch light. Habit, I guess, checking to see if there were any strangers skulking around in the radius of that weak little bulb’s range, or forgotten pets waiting to be let in. There was nothing Unusual, but as I dropped the curtain and turned away, a thought hit me. A feeling, actually, a fleeting impulse to go outside, that immediately dismissed itself; I almost didn’t notice it.

Why shouldn’t I step out - onto my very own porch, with my very own space and night around it? When had I stopped going outside for “no reason?” Had I resigned myself to always being needed in the house, on call? Allowed that feeling to spread and swallow up all the free parts of me? Maybe I’d gotten old, jaded. No - and I’d been inspired that week by people who would take the experience; who wouldn’t stand here wondering.

On that whim, I quietly slipped out into a night that engulfed me. A momentary rush of fear I didn’t expect (am I afraid of the dark?), at the vastness of it, held me with my back against the door for a moment, my hand on the knob. But then I regained some sense of self, and stepped out onto the porch that was my island. Actually, it suddenly felt more like a rocking ship, and me on deck with nothing to hold on to. I stubbornly braced my feet and found my balance, then looked out into black, unfamiliar waters.

It was cold - I hadn’t expected that, either. There was a thin layer of frost on the van in the driveway. I was surprised to see my breath in the air in front of me; I held it for a moment, to listen.

The night is deafening in its silence, sometimes. You brain scrambles frantically to find some familiar noise, one sound for an anchor. The dark’s heaviness pulses with the distant lights of town. For a fearful moment, you think you’ve lost your hearing. Then the sounds finally come. Barking; a dog down the road; was it there all along?

I heard a hoof scrape the ground nearby; one of the horses shifting its weight, a sigh. It was too cold, yet, for the insects, the spring peepers, the bullfrogs that we’d start hearing within the month.

I’m trailing, because it’s after the fact; I’m back inside and can ramble.

But in the moment…

The moment was exhilarating! Why do we spend the majority of our time indoors? We are supposed to have a natural connection, be on comfortable terms with that air, that space. With stars there every night, reminding us to be humble.

But I’m back inside this turtle shell of a house, where the fresh air can’t cure my cough, and the hills can’t give me strength. I’ve pulled myself away from the real things in my life, dwelling in the virtual, indulging in a spending spree of Time.

——————————-

And now, for something not so different:

Tonight I see the hours going by like those sinister monkeys in The Wizard of Oz. I know if I stay up much later, I’ll see worse.

My own personal demons come to me late at night, in the forms of Clarity and Perception of Time. I wouldn’t introduce them to my worst enemy. If I fail to escape them through sleep, or if they catch me waking at 3 am, they dance around me and play pictures on the walls: All the Things I Haven’t Done, All the Things I Should Have Done. The State of Things as They Really Are. But that’s only the beginning.

They then show me images of my children growing and changing, loved ones aging; show me moments I can’t get back or take back. The films speed up: pain of others, sorrow. Then on to hidden horrors and fears - if I can outlast the acceleration, lie there holding still as possible, it all pulls toward the black hole of sleep. But more often than not, after tossing and turning a bit, I jump up to pace, needing to shake it off. I roam the house, and end up here at the kitchen table, wishing I drank or smoked, had any little habit to take my mind away.

Aha! A visit to literalminded might be the cure tonight!