Woe Is Me

Do you ever wake up with the feeling that you've been working like mad all night but have no idea what you've been working at? This happened to me last night. I think it might have had partly to do with that bum knee. For exercise this week, I have avoided walking, as per the doctor's orders, and using instead the prone-position bicycle at the gym. Last night, since we had theater tickets, we parked in downtown Laguna Beach and walked about three blocks to the restaurant where we had booked dinner, then five of six blocks to the theater, and a couple more back to the car. Then I woke several times during the night with shooting pains in the knee and had a hard job finding a comfortable place to get back to sleep. (I blame George, in part, for this. He insisted in sleeping right down in the place where I extend my foot, and refused to budge despite several hearty kicks. George sleeps just fine.)

I think this blog is another contributor to those hard-working nights. My head starts to write before it even hits the pillow and persists in thinking/writing while I'm trying to get to sleep. That is, it keeps trying to line up the words just right, then going back over them in a kind of rehearsal, to be sure they'll be remembered exactly when I wake. My theory is that it keeps working away at the same stuff while I'm sleeping. But then, when I wake... nothing. It's all gone anyway, and I have to start afresh.

Does this sound familiar to anyone? It has taken me years to build to the kind of daily writing practice that is, pretty much, my life today, and I'm grateful for it. I have perhaps been a bit too successful, though, because I'm clearly finding it hard to hit the "off" switch. The past few days, it has been the same with meditation. Than Geoff's familiar advice resounds in my head: Not now. But my head has either not been getting the message or choosing to ignore it. I sit and make up words. I write...

This morning I have decided to reverse my usual process: write first, then meditate. This is it, the writing part. I'll report back on the results. In the meantime, metta to all. Here goes.