I’ve been thinking about sleep. I have two grown children with diametrically opposed ideas about sleep, as they always did have. My boy child–now a man–has always said, “Sleep is a waste of time.” My girl child–now a mother of two–has always declared that “Sleep is sacred.” For her, I’m sure, now more than ever.

For most of my years, I gave it little thought, I’m sure. Aside from being curious about it; I do remember wondering philosophically about sleep in general. The whole have to sleep to restore and renew thing. It felt like a design flaw sometimes. Other times it seemed like a great idea. But I rarely pondered my personal need for sleep. I went to bed when I was sleepy–usually pretty late; I was what was referred to as a ‘night owl’. I got up when I woke up, for many years to the sounds of an alarm, I’ll admit, because it was “time” to start the day: kids to school, me to work, and so forth. My husband always seemed to have an internal clock and got up cheerful and talkative, while my son and I were slower to get started and less engaged. My daughter was hard to get out of bed.

After we moved to High Springs, five years ago this summer, I began to want to stay up later and get up earlier. The getting up part I blamed on the dog wanting to go for our walk, and I suppose it became a habit to get up with the dawn for the most part.

The going-to-bed part I have come to think of as surrendering. I take some medication for a seizure condition, and it slows down my nervous system, so within an hour of taking it, I’m feeling drowsy. Not so much so that I HAVE to go to bed, but just mellower and less inclined to fight going to bed unless there’s something I really want to do, like write. When I do surrender, I sleep well except for the nightly trips to the bathroom to empty my bladder, sometimes several of them. I keep telling myself to stop drinking liquid earlier in the day, and I keep not listening to myself. Funny, I never resent those trips. I think I relish the idea of waking up–for any reason.

My husband loves to sleep. He goes to bed, usually before I do, most of the time an hour or two before I do. And he gets up later than I do. I think of those hours as my alone time, and I like having some of that.

I’m thinking of sleep these days as time when I’m not alive. I’m living, of course, but not alive. I’m alive when I’m awake. It’s not hard to figure out: I’m coming to the end of my life and want to have as much time as I can steal to be alive, awake, productive, contributing, learning, communicating, and feeling. So, I’ve come around to my son’s way of looking at it: a waste of time.

My mother said once that I always fought sleep. I have no memory of that, but I believe her. Maybe I was destined to come to this conclusion. Maybe I’m trying to steal time and stockpile it, even though my logical brain knows how ludicrous that is. Maybe I just want to be alive until I’m not, and as long as my eyes are open … well, you get it, I’m sure.

It’s just me, again, pondering life’s mysteries and offering my take on them. Today it’s sleep. Tomorrow, who knows?

“Every day is today.” Tom Hanks said that when he hosted SNL last night. It just rang true for me. I’ve had to ask several times, “What day is it?” I can’t keep track, and to be honest, what does it matter? Except that today is Easter. Not that I would be getting dressed up and going to church or anything, but I would be watching my grandkids chase each other around to find eggs their parents had “hidden,” the colors coded so that Mia, who is two years younger than Wyatt, would be able to collect hers and he his.

But to get back to my comment about every day being today and my having to ask…ask my husband, that is. We are quarantined together. So there is someone to ask, someone to cook for, someone to argue with, laugh with, someone to hug. He’s someone to decide with as to which project we’ll tackle next, what to cook for breakfast and dinner, what to watch on Netflix or Amazon Prime in the evening. Because we are in agreement about this one thing: no TV news blaring all day long. Or at all. It only ramps up the anxiety. I would have lost what mind I have left had I been forced to endure Trump’s daily press briefings. It’s bad enough that I get the gist of them second hand the next day online via the Guardian or  NPR.

I think I saw the kids last (physically) on my birthday–March 2nd. I turned 80, and they came over with balloons, cake and hugs and kisses and messages of love. Something I hope I didn’t take for granted, because right after that it got serious, and my daughter wisely decided not to let them bring their daycare germs to us. They go to nursery school with kids whose parents have essential jobs and can’t stay home. Here in our little town I don’t think there are any infections, but it’s closing in on us with some counties nearby reporting cases. If I get it, I don’t want to go to the hospital. I want to stay home and stay out of bed as much as possible. If it’s going to get me, I want it to have to find me–upright and breathing deep breaths, fighting until my last one.

I sent out electronic Easter cards with this message: “May we all be humbled by our own vulnerabilities, inspired by the generous and self-sacrificing actions of the heroic people in our midst, and motivated to do better and be better for the rest of the time we have.” Terrible tragedies are already being reported about deaths–people having to die alone without human touch–about fear and hunger and an inability to put distance between them and others–among the less fortunate of us. I hope we are able to do something about the inequities we live with some day.

Because good, too, will come of this. It will. We’ve hit the pause button. That has to allow us to learn something–about our selves, our loved ones, our neighbors, our cities, states, countries, and our planet. If we’re capable of change, this would be the venue from which to begin.

Happy Easter, everyone.