Ode to Sleep

in the past 36 hours, i’d like to announce, I have slept TWENTY SIX hours. Naturally, upon waking, I thought to make this public knowledge. So, lucky you, I’m writing a monologue about the beauty of sleep. Nope - not sleeping beauty, for I have several pressure marks (in a satisfiying squiggle) across my face, my hair has forgotten about gravity and I’m still not certain what timescape I’m existing in. BUT. I feel ALIVE AGAIN.

in the context of the seasons, summer is really a rather awake one. all that day light. all that sun. even all the rain - that somehow you just go out in, get drenched and feel slightly smug about, because you’re not freezing and debating if you can afford to put the central heating on when you get back indoors. summer days seem to encompass three times as much day as those during the rest of the year. You’ve got the morning bit for coffee and whatever, the middle bit where something happens, then the blessed evening when you either walk for miles or talk for ages over pints of gin in some pub garden. Everything is in bloom. (the blackberries are bangin this year). The sun rises before you (officially) and sets just as you reach the point of how much more can I do today.

and I love it.

but this is not an ode to summer.

this, my friends, is an ode to sleep.

sleep. the one thing that summer forgets about. i’d go as far as to say that sleep actually forgets about you. even when trying to meditate on pink sheep, my brain is humming a jet2 holiday jingle, i’m debating the presentation of gender and its relevance, i’m trying to work out what i’ve committed to the next day and whether the buzz in the room is a fly that will bite, or just a pal, and whether I should work out the whole tax return thing now and get ahead or should I plough energy into securing my next photographic job. there is SO MUCH going on ALL AT ONCE. so, they tell me, could you try -

meditation.

magnesium.

moderation.

maybe, but also nahhhh cos the birds are getting up again and there’s so much out there to dive into.

however. this leads to not just tiredness, but marathon sleeps. and even these have to be timetabled nowadays. so. in the case that you, reading this, may also have been kissed with a touch of solar-panelled insomnia, i’m including in this monologue, a series of artworks made by various folk that involve S L E E P.

buongiorno, buonanotte.