Insomnia

Sleep tips me out at 5 a.m. today. Thanks, alcohol. At first I maintain hope that I might fall back asleep, but that hope fades as my hungover craving for juice increases. There’s a little store five minutes away on foot and thankfully it just opened, so I throw on my clothes and head out, leaving the door to the house ajar because I don’t know the code.

I’m wearing shorts and a thin flannel, so the air is chilly but not unpleasant. At first I wonder if I’m safe—a woman walking alone this early—but then I stop wondering. I am. This is good for me. I see a rug hanging from a washing line and feel grateful.

I enter the store and see a man sitting at a wooden table inside, apparently very at home with the hour. I feel guilty for not smiling at him. I pull a cherry Bai out of the fridge and pay for it with my phone, thanking the lady at the checkout with as much friendliness as I can muster. As I leave I’m thinking about whether I was nice enough and how I could have “done better.” I want to move through the world with love that transforms. I probably don’t need to put that kind of pressure on myself at 5.55 a.m.

I was only inside for a minute, but stepping back out into the morning air, I’m floored. The sun on the trees is really turning into something and this place is extremely charming. Thrilled, I walk and wish I could capture its beauty somehow. I think about how I need to stop performing life so much and just be here. I also think about how much guilt I often feel over my insomnia—particularly when it’s caused by my own questionable choices like alcohol consumption—and how that guilt has vanished in the loveliness of this emerging morning. I would rather be experiencing it than not, even if my body is paying a price.

So true

I’m surprised by how muggy the air is inside when I get back to the house. I figure out how to open a window to let in some fresh stuff and the birdsong (it’s going hard) but it’s not enough, so I grab the top blanket from my bed and pull a chair onto the porch to sit. I notice there’s a camera on me while I write in my journal. Observation is inescapable even in rural Wyoming. (What a classic sentence.)

I’m restless (of course) so I get up to wander. I walk down the road just far enough to notice that there are cows on the property. I stop to try and have a moment with them but am very aware that my species is their predator and don’t want to spook them. Perhaps eye contact isn’t necessary right now, though I’d like to gaze with a cow for as long as they’ll let me. I keep walking and being dazzled. The rising sun on the aspen trees is beautiful in a way I can’t put into words because I haven’t developed my poeticism enough. Maybe I will someday; I can’t imagine what else I’ll do with life, if I get to live much more of it.

I meet more cows a little further along. They’re huge and eating grass and I’m so glad they don’t stop as I approach them, though they notice my arrival. There’s also a bunny (!) bridging the gap between me and the one closest to me. I stand there for a while, admiring the cow with a small amount of fear. She’s powerful and I sense that she might not share my desire for transcendence through interspecies connection. I don’t blame her.

Something startles her (movement of my blanket?) and she instinctively runs to the side, clearly disturbed by me. “Sorry!” I say softly, backing off. I want to keep observing her and the rest of the herd but I also want to respect their morning, so I reluctantly walk away. Their eyes stay fixed on me as I do.

I notice a small dead bird as I get closer to the house. A robin? It’s such a gentle sight but my heart rate quickens. There’s no discernible reason it’s dead. Why is it dead? I think about how wild it is that life eventually leaves our bodies and we become inanimate. I saw my first dead human at a funeral last year and was taken by the inanimateness. I make a mental note to tell the others in the house about the bird so they don’t encounter it in the wrong way. I wonder what will happen to it?

I go inside and try to figure out how to work either of the coffee machines. I’m eventually successful with both, yay. There are two ice-burnt burritos in the freezer; I microwave one and eat it. Sorry, body. But isn’t this nice?