Trouble sleeping
I'm having trouble sleeping.
Writing that down made me think of a perfect 11-year-old song by British singer Corinne Bailey Rae. Unlike Corinne, my sleeplessness is not because I'm falling in love (please, send no flowers and shed no tears) but because I have had insomnia for many years now. I couldn't tell you when it started, but I reckon it was in my late teens, because I remember being a somewhat unhealthily deep sleeper as a child (my dad once had to scale the front of our house in Lagos and climb in through the balcony because the doorbell could not rouse me), and well into secondary school.
Insomnia is one of those grown up ailments I always liked reading about in novels and watching in films. It meant you drank fancy drinks with tough but warm women in neighbourhood bars, and were probably working through a job-related problem. It looked like smoking cigarettes on your fire escape while staring out into the night, far above the city, thinking deep, mature thoughts. Insomnia was kinda sexy. Slumber seemed like it could be a trap - there was a life outside to be lived! The reality is, of course, nothing like its fictional counterpart – I need sleep, man. The city's dark night-time blanket is not electrifying. Rather, it is deep and boring, like a philosophy student you might come across at a first year uni house party. And I don't smoke.
I've been averaging about four hours a night for several weeks now. The discomfort is not just manifested in a more sluggish brain and lethargic muscles; it also lives in my gritty eyes, which are already feeling the rigours of allergy season. I nap on every subway journey, no matter how few stops. I am always tired. I feel like shit. My skin is dull. My insomnia varies in its severity all year round, and so I know this is not a permanent state of affairs. Even so, I'm pretty miserable about it at the moment. Am I painting a dreary picture? Well, Reader, imagine how I feel.
I am saying all of these things not because I want you to send me tips on your fail safe ways to beat insomnia. Don't tell me about the natural supplement you swear by. Give me no remedies that end in -nin. I am dealing with it as I wish to. It will pass. But here's a thing you can do: you can think of me if you happen to wake up to pee around 4:15am, and wish some quiet upon my brain.
I am currently firmly in the grip of love for my new apartment. It's so bright, and when the sun hits, it gets (almost horribly) warm, which means a) summer may well be a deathly trial; but also b) winter may well be lit, because I will take all the sun traps I can get in those awful months.
I have very little furniture, an act of prudence when I assumed I would be in New York for just 12 months. But this is now the beginning of Month 14, with at least another 10 to go, so perhaps a little bedside table wouldn't hurt, and I can stop putting my books on the floor, like an oik. I am a superb house-dweller: I like spending time at home, and so I make it pleasurable and pretty to do so but I have been hobbled by the spectre of the countdown clock in my mind. No longer. I've always been a maximalist at heart – I need *things*. And so I'm going to wander and find small and hopefully inexpensive things to feather my nest. I owe it to my memoirs to have at least one talking point piece of furniture, you know? Here is the singer Kelis taking viewers on a tour of her LA home and watching that short little video reminded me to go get plants immediately, and to buy myself flowers most weeks, because life can be beautiful, even when it feels like it is on fire.
To flowers! And to sleep!
Here is a photo of Liane La Havas performing at Glastonbury a few years back. I have been replaying Blood a lot. It's still so dreamy. And look at her flawless highlighter!