Go Placidly Amidst the Noise and Haste

My girlfriend woke me up last night to inform me that I was shouting. I was quite confused by this. In my understanding of events she, who was also my childhood best friend - affectionately known as rusty, had just been shot. The ambulance was taking too long to arrive, and so loudly shouting ‘help’ was whilst perhaps not the most effective course of action, was at least situationally appropritate and not something I needed to be informed of.

I could tell by my girlfriends tone that she disagreed with this assessment. Fortunately I am an expert at conversational implicatures and surfacing hidden communicative intent, and so in my half slumber I responded - ‘am I not supposed to be shouting?’. Apparently not.

This was the first time I did a bit of nocturnal shouting last night. The second time I dreamt that I was writing an essay about how everything had been turned into marshmallow. Importantly, pastries, and only pastries, had wisely been exempted from this otherwise universal transformation. I got out my phone in order to find a relevant quote to insert into my essay, which I hoped would somehow help contextualise the state of marshmallow affairs. But then I threw my phone against the wall. I found this very vexatious as I needed my phone for the quote and now it was broken. And so I shouted ‘Noooo’. Again, perhaps a little melodramatic, but still a situationally appropriate response in my world.

After this I decided I needed to shake off the nighttime shouties and went downstairs to get some rhubarb streusel (which I have recently learned is similar to but distinct from a strudel) as well as some banana bread and cream. I then ate this in bed, next to my sleeping but probably not very deeply girlfriend.

We are currently staying with my parents in York - me, my girlfriend, my brother, my brother’s partner, their 2 year old daughter and my granny, together with my mother and stepfather. My brother is on nighttime duty and sleeps with his daughter in a separate bedroom to his partner. This is in part so that only one of them has disturbed sleep when their daughter wakes up crying in the middle of the night. This is also in part because my brother snores like a bulldozer or some other industrial construction vehicle, and so he would likely disturb his partner anyway. He recently had nose surgery to desnorify him, but this has not been successful.

After I had finished my streusel and banana bread my brother knocked on my bedroom to check if everything was ok, as apparently my shouting had woken him up. I found it very sweet to be included in the remit of his nighttime welfare duty.

One of the few objects in said bedroom is the Desiderata - a framed print of a prose poem by Max Ehrmann. This used to belong to my grandparents, who are know in the stage of their lives where their children and grandchildren have begun to lay claims to their various possessions. I haven’t been paying much attention to the family whatsapp group where my mother has been listing these items, and have missed out on many treasures such as the octagonal dining table (which I recently learnt actually has nine sides), various silverwares and large quantities of playing cards. My grandfather was/ is a hoarder and has ammassed many room fulls of knick knacks and paddywacks, and so there is a lot of physical inheritance to go around (my grandfather is still alive, but his health is deteriorating such that he is no longer able to successfully defend his hoarder treasure from my mother’s desire to clean the house).

The only item that I have laid claim to is the Desiderata, which I have fond childhood memories of. However, my brother also apparently has the capacity to develop fond childhood memories, and also laid claim to the Desiderata. This has put my mother in a difficult position as the de facto executor of my still living grandparents’ estate. Her strategy for navigating this conflict was to give my brother the Desiderata, and to print of another Desiderata and give the copy to me. If the carving of the family estate had happened a few years ago, I expect I would have won out in this minor struggle, though since my brother has provided her with a granddaughter he has managed a surprising late stage usurpation of my position as favourite child.

My mother thought that I wouldn’t notice that I had been given a knock-off desiderata (see this post for more details on my mother’s acts of deception and how this has informed my character development). I was not fooled, and upon realising this and expressing my outrage, she decided to switch strategy and instead give my brother the knock-off desiderata. Though plausibly then fearing that my brother would also be wise to her ersatzery, she switched strategy once more and informed my brother that I had stolen the real Desiderata, and abnegated any further responsibility for determining the true rights to the heirloom.

It’s unclear to me who is in more need of the Desiderata’s wisdom, given the nighttime events. The poem opens ‘Go placidly amidst the noise and haste’, which perhaps describes my brother’s lived environmental context better than mine. Though the poem continues ‘and remember what peace there may be in silence’ which is plausibly a lesson that I have greater need of learning. I do not know, though I do not plan on any relinquishment.

After I had finished the streusel and banana bread, and after my brother’s check-in had concluded, I messed around on my phone for a while, which it turns out was not broken after all. I spent some time on r/Narcolepsy. I’d always vaguely assumed that my tendency towards nighttime shouting and screaming was the result of some childhood trauma, buried in my subconscious until I reach the relevant item on my processing todo list. However it seems that the nighttime shouties are a fairly common phenomenon for narcoleptics, as well as having frequent vivid crazy dreams.

It felt good to read r/Narcolepsy. It seems that I often forget that I have narcolepsy, and reading about others’ experiences felt like a good reminder. It was fun to read my fellow narcoleptics responses to ‘What’s the weirdest place/time you’ve fallen asleep?’. I particularly enjoyed the answer: ‘I was saying the prayer at a church event. Everyone initially thought I was having a spiritual moment when I went silent, but after a minute they caught on.’

I’m not sure of my own answer to this, but some of my favourites

• Outside Pergamon Museum in Berlin. I was museuming with my mum, and found it quite boring, and so left her to continue looking at old objects and stuff whilst I slept outside.

• In the waiting room for my narcolepsy diagnosis appointment.

• Under a table in the library at college. I woke up to the chemistry teacher shouting at me that the library was not an appropriate place to sleep. I think this was a bit unfair, but it also happened after I’d attempted a student-led coup against the teachers, and so I can understand her antagonism towards me.

• Any time I’m in a car. I think the strongest soporific for me is being in a car with under-seat heating, gets me every time.

I am currently in my parents living room with my niece and brother’s partner - soon it will be time for their midday nap. Before that she has two projects that she needs to complete. One - running around in circles on the carpet. Two - building a house under the table that I am sat working at. I am jealous of her energy levels and joi de vivre. But I am smarter than she is and have better fine motor control so it all evens out in the end.

Her inadequacy in these departments was recently showcased when my mother gave her a knife whilst they were baking a cake together. My brother thought it was insane to give a two year old a knife and so proclaimed ‘this is insane’, and proceeded to reappropriate the knife from the two year old. Taking a knife from a two year old it turns out is a difficult task, and intimately related to the reasons one should not give a knife to a two year old in the first place. Luckily the gash on my brothers’ hand is only surface level.

Once all the relevant naps are said and done, we four generations of family will celebrate a belated Christmas together. I anticipate it with eagerness.

Merry Christmas!