Yesterday, early in the morning - why are earthquakes often early in the morning? - two small earthquakes shook the Bay Area. Originating in El Cerrito, which is just about 15 miles from me, the two quakes came back to back: the first 3.5 followed eight seconds later by a 4.0. I happened to be awake. I happened to have woken up about 2 minutes before the first one, tossing and turning.
Recently, I have been waking up early in the morning - between 3am and 6am - and I can't get back to sleep because I feel like I have exhausted all sleeping positions. I've already slept on my front, my back, my right side AND my left side. I know there's people that sleep all night in one basic position - I mean, I assume there are. I've never slept next to anyone like that, but I see their sleep habits advertised on pillow covers: Good for side sleepers! they say. For back sleepers. Like there are people who sleep ONLY on their back. I wonder if this is true?
Anyway, I get tired of just these four choices: one side, the other side, front and back. Where's my fifth choice? On my feet or on my head - top & bottom, right? That would be the other dimension. But I like to be lying down when I sleep. Call me crazy. So those are out.
And what happens, when I awake in the wee hours, physically restless, is that I feel a little despair at the lack of choices. Four ways to sleep - is THAT all there is? It starts to almost get me depressed, because it's similar to the way I think about other things when I am depressed - like, there's very few things in life to do, when you strip away the details. I mean, what do we EVER do? We eat, we sleep, we work. We talk to others, or we listen - or it's silent. We recreate. Every once in a while, we create. It can also get a sort of sameness to it that makes me blue. I feel like I imagine a goldfish in a bowl would feel if they did NOT have a seven-second memory: swim around the castle, over the castle, away from the castle or towards the castle. Agh! Enough already.
Now, when I am *not* depressed, when I am engaged and full of energy, life seems to be full of possibility and variety at every turn. Look at the wonders of the world, I think! The flowers, the ocean, the call from an old friend. But when I'm blue - depleted of energy, disconnected - it's all so discountable. It's all so easy to write off as not much of anything. Ocean, scmocean.
And lately, I've been very absorbed in work - my job as been very busy and engaging, as well as somewhat stressful. But I'm working towards a large, exciting event and so there's possibility. But it's all-consuming, for me, in order to be able to get through it these days. And when I wake up, my brain starts going - about work. Just thinking about it. I lay there, and I think about work, and I wish there were a fifth way I could lay in bed.
This happened on Monday morning, and then - there was an earthquake! Hey hey! My house was shaking in a way that told me it wasn't just a heavy-stepping drunk roommate but rather the earth was shaking, which meant we were having an earthquake.
Now, the thing about earthquakes is that, in the middle of them, while they are happening, there's definitly some fear that arises from the fact that you don't yet know how bad or big it is going to get. This could be The Big One. It could start to get a lot worse at any moment, and you just don't know whether it's going to, until it's all over. So there's a few moments during any earthquake - at least the ones I've been in, and I've lived in California for 30 years so that's saying something - in which one is QUITE alert. I think, hmm, at what point do I get up, out of bed, naked? At what point, do I stand in the doorway even though I don't think we're supposed to even do that? But what else am I supposed to do? I don't really know WHAT to do in a large earthquake, or at what point I should get up to do it.
My point is, I'm VERY awake at those moments, because I'm thinking - in either the back of my mind, or the front - that, you know, I suppose this could be it. Americans mostly survive earthquakes because in this modern age and in this modernized country, our buildings stand up OK. But still, you never know. They say (my mother tells me - "they" being unknown) we're due for a Big One. Sure. Whatever.
What happened, I discovered, is that those two relatively-small yet powerful-feeling back-to-back quakes really prompted me to stop worrying about work. I also stopped being concerned about the lack of an additional sleeping position. The quakes ended, and did not magnify or continue, and so it seemed like it was all OK. In fact, it was great! My perspective was totally changed. It was quite NICE to be in bed, in any position, allowed to worry about work, wasn't it? Because it was much better than the opposite, which is having to get up for a castastophic earthquake. It's like Vietnam - man, you make it thorough and the rest of your life is gravy.
I'm exaggerating to make a point. The quakes were small, insignficant - maybe, as "they" say hopefully, letting off pressure and making larger earthquakes *less* likely - but they had a big impact on my mood. I was no longer restless and stressed; I was relieved, and alive - and what's better than that?
I'm not thinking earthquakes are the best mood-changing method, but you take your lessons in life where you find then, and I prefer to get them in this more gentle, rather than dramatic (i.e. Vietnam) way. So, I rolled over, and went back to sleep.
Recently, I have been waking up early in the morning - between 3am and 6am - and I can't get back to sleep because I feel like I have exhausted all sleeping positions. I've already slept on my front, my back, my right side AND my left side. I know there's people that sleep all night in one basic position - I mean, I assume there are. I've never slept next to anyone like that, but I see their sleep habits advertised on pillow covers: Good for side sleepers! they say. For back sleepers. Like there are people who sleep ONLY on their back. I wonder if this is true?
Anyway, I get tired of just these four choices: one side, the other side, front and back. Where's my fifth choice? On my feet or on my head - top & bottom, right? That would be the other dimension. But I like to be lying down when I sleep. Call me crazy. So those are out.
And what happens, when I awake in the wee hours, physically restless, is that I feel a little despair at the lack of choices. Four ways to sleep - is THAT all there is? It starts to almost get me depressed, because it's similar to the way I think about other things when I am depressed - like, there's very few things in life to do, when you strip away the details. I mean, what do we EVER do? We eat, we sleep, we work. We talk to others, or we listen - or it's silent. We recreate. Every once in a while, we create. It can also get a sort of sameness to it that makes me blue. I feel like I imagine a goldfish in a bowl would feel if they did NOT have a seven-second memory: swim around the castle, over the castle, away from the castle or towards the castle. Agh! Enough already.
Now, when I am *not* depressed, when I am engaged and full of energy, life seems to be full of possibility and variety at every turn. Look at the wonders of the world, I think! The flowers, the ocean, the call from an old friend. But when I'm blue - depleted of energy, disconnected - it's all so discountable. It's all so easy to write off as not much of anything. Ocean, scmocean.
And lately, I've been very absorbed in work - my job as been very busy and engaging, as well as somewhat stressful. But I'm working towards a large, exciting event and so there's possibility. But it's all-consuming, for me, in order to be able to get through it these days. And when I wake up, my brain starts going - about work. Just thinking about it. I lay there, and I think about work, and I wish there were a fifth way I could lay in bed.
This happened on Monday morning, and then - there was an earthquake! Hey hey! My house was shaking in a way that told me it wasn't just a heavy-stepping drunk roommate but rather the earth was shaking, which meant we were having an earthquake.
Now, the thing about earthquakes is that, in the middle of them, while they are happening, there's definitly some fear that arises from the fact that you don't yet know how bad or big it is going to get. This could be The Big One. It could start to get a lot worse at any moment, and you just don't know whether it's going to, until it's all over. So there's a few moments during any earthquake - at least the ones I've been in, and I've lived in California for 30 years so that's saying something - in which one is QUITE alert. I think, hmm, at what point do I get up, out of bed, naked? At what point, do I stand in the doorway even though I don't think we're supposed to even do that? But what else am I supposed to do? I don't really know WHAT to do in a large earthquake, or at what point I should get up to do it.
My point is, I'm VERY awake at those moments, because I'm thinking - in either the back of my mind, or the front - that, you know, I suppose this could be it. Americans mostly survive earthquakes because in this modern age and in this modernized country, our buildings stand up OK. But still, you never know. They say (my mother tells me - "they" being unknown) we're due for a Big One. Sure. Whatever.
What happened, I discovered, is that those two relatively-small yet powerful-feeling back-to-back quakes really prompted me to stop worrying about work. I also stopped being concerned about the lack of an additional sleeping position. The quakes ended, and did not magnify or continue, and so it seemed like it was all OK. In fact, it was great! My perspective was totally changed. It was quite NICE to be in bed, in any position, allowed to worry about work, wasn't it? Because it was much better than the opposite, which is having to get up for a castastophic earthquake. It's like Vietnam - man, you make it thorough and the rest of your life is gravy.
I'm exaggerating to make a point. The quakes were small, insignficant - maybe, as "they" say hopefully, letting off pressure and making larger earthquakes *less* likely - but they had a big impact on my mood. I was no longer restless and stressed; I was relieved, and alive - and what's better than that?
I'm not thinking earthquakes are the best mood-changing method, but you take your lessons in life where you find then, and I prefer to get them in this more gentle, rather than dramatic (i.e. Vietnam) way. So, I rolled over, and went back to sleep.
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