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Tuesday, December 18, 2018

Light in Darkness, Motes and Planks, Specks and Beams

It’s holiday time, as in American Christmas holiday time, not as in American Jewish holiday time, which is High Holiday time. It’s holiday time, and all the lights are up and I love it. I love it because I can find my street now. I mean, it’s dark in our suburb. Not for nothing did the children dub it The Dark Divisions of Delmar when we moved here. No streetlights. Dark, dark, dark. So I'm always happy this time of year, especially for our neighbors the Bs, who light up a whole forest of pines, right on the corner of our street. I am serious when I say I love it because I can find the street.



I also love it this year because it means I made it through a semester teaching college first years how to write. I turned in my last grade yesterday. What a relief, at least for a moment. Now I have to write the syllabus for next semester. Oy veh. I nervously await their course evaluations.

In other news, my email newsletter distribution list keeps growing. I find this odd, because I’ve been posting less often than I used to. Fewer posts—more people sign up. What does it mean? They like what I’m not saying. Will they like it when I do say something?

Probably not. Who wants advice?

I follow lots of advice. So much it gets confusing. Eat no carbs. Eat no meat. Eat no fat. Eat only fat. Eat only carbs. Exercise before you eat. Eat before you exercise. Don’t do a shoulder stand if you have your period. Go ahead, stand on your head. Drink coffee. Coffee is the devil. Coffee protects against Alzheimer’s. Put butter in your coffee. You know the drill.

I would never—never—put butter in my coffee. But people do recommend it. Some people. They are currently hospitalized with clogged arteries and can no longer speak of this obscenity, but I promise you, they did.

But one topic of advice is pretty consistent: sleep hygiene. Sleep advice is never changing. Speaking of sleep hygiene. I just have to say that almost every woman I know over a certain age has gone for a sleep study. I have not gone for a sleep study, nor do I intend to; however, sleep is sometimes a challenge. I do all the things you’re supposed to do. I like advice.

Correction: I KNOW all the things I’m supposed to do—use the bedroom for sleeping and nookie only. Don’t read in bed or lounge in bed or watch TV or eat in bed. Keep to regular hours. Stay up until you’re ready to go to sleep, get in your pajamas or your altogether, whichever you prefer, perform your ablutions; then get in bed, turn out the light. Make your room really dark. Put an Auntie Mame sleep mask on if you want to—and I want to. And then you sleep.

Theoretically. This is what my father does, and he is 93. As far back as I can remember, he has sat up reading and listening to music until about 11 pm, then gone to bed and slept like a stone until 7 a.m. He seems to have got that right, and he’s doing just fine.

Anyway, I have my procedures.They involve my Auntie Mame sleep mask, and not drinking any liquids after 8 pm, except for the tiny sips of water to swallow my tinctures of motherwort and chickweed, and room darkening shades and all that jazz. Yet the best sleep I’ve had recently? Was after a huge dinner, late, a glass of wine, a large glass of water, in a hotel bed after watching late night TV in said hotel bed. Then I did it again, only at home. Up late after a large meal and wine. Slept like a baby.

So, screw advice.

But I am going to tell you something. A little story. A little story about how the husband, I noticed, had a thing about closing cabinet doors. I’d be in the kitchen with him and he’s be walking past a cabinet and he’d, you know, close the door. And, Readers, this irked me. I extrapolated all kinds of psychological metaphors from this behavior. He is uptight. He is closing doors around me. He is closing doors for me.

Get it? He is closing doors for me. Closing doors. On me.

Very dark interpretation. I was feeling hemmed in. Hard to breathe. Walls closing in. The star of my very own 1970s feminist awakening film.

Also, it was irksome behavior. And I was about to call him out on it. I was about to talk about the metaphoric implications, not to mention the more literal ones, such as the husband is type A, a control freak, whatever.

Then I noticed that he wasn’t just pressing on closed doors. That would be—what’s that word?—cuckoo. He was actually closing cabinet doors that were open. And when he wasn’t around, I noticed that I was —are you ready?—leaving cabinet doors open.

Not exactly gaping wide open. Ajar. I was leaving them ajar. Like all the time.

Now, I have a perfectly good reason for leaving doors ajar. Really I do. The reason is that usually both my hands are full—and sometimes my armpits are, too—so I can only get so much leverage to fling the door closed. My hands are usually full because I’m doing more than one thing at a time, such as carrying too many things so I only have to walk around the kitchen once, or trying not to trip because one foot is caught in the other pant leg because I am doing too many things at once because I am in a rush, frantic, a woman.

So, you know that old adage, that proverb? The mote and plank one?* Because there I was, about to unload my irritation on the husband, when he was probably irritated by me. And was shutting the doors on it, figuratively. I say probably irritated, because he didn’t show it. He just shut the door.

Just think about that one during this holiday season. I wouldn’t call that advice, because nobody listens to advice, and nobody really wants advice. But a story. That’s a different thing.

Happy Holidays.

*Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? —Matthew 7:3, Bible, New International Version

OR:::::::

And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? — King James Version