notes

a stressful phonecall
a potential pervert on the tube
an intriguing class
a short dinner
a funky brazilian drink
a stylish carry-on bag exit
a peruvian woman who wants her (english) man to be more machista
a helpful hand
a sleepless night
notes and more notes

there are no werewolves

there are no vampires calling out for blood
no witches incanting wicked spells
hallows wailing in despair
or screaming banshees...screaming

there is just me, the creaking house, new knitting needles, four hours of quite unnecessary brain activity, and the planes.

in the middle of the night

i wake up next to a puddle, i ask the puddle, are you ok? the puddle says mmhm, i'm ok, i steal the covers off from the puddle, listen to the planes, move to the edge of the bed and go back to sleep. next to a puddle. wet.

more sleepless nights than you can shake a stick at

jesus fucking christ
2am
3am
4am
5am
6am
am
am
i am
you are
it is
isn't it?

dreaming of planes

planes wake me up every morning. planes don't let me sleep every night. planes i dream of jumping on or jumping off, depending of the direction of travel. wouldn't it be nice. to have a personal taxi service delivering you by plane to your bed every night. back from far away places, head full of colours and songs and exotic languages. dreaming in reverse. waking life fantastic and then sleep normality back on.

dawn, after a long time

beautiful music coming from the next door garden. i've just got in. i could tell them to turn it off, but it's hauntingly beautiful and i don't care. i'm going to go to sleep to the sound of a mysterious female voice. i've just come back. i could go over the evening, at uncle sam's in kingsland road, listening to live jazz, but maybe i won't.

just that the music made me think very hard, and the harder i thought the more i realised i can't ever remember anything. my mind is an empty box. a fine mesh, that lets everything go through. except the big stones. but they're not diamonds.

the music is still playing outside. i'm going to forget this soon enough. in the end i always do.

enchanted

a spell has been cast over the household. the inhabitants fall asleep at the least provocation. it takes a chair, a sofa, even standing at the counter, while brushing your teeth...sleep will catch you unawares and get hold of you. but my guess is it would have to be a very brave prince to come through the overgrown garden, break the spell and take the prize.

siesta by the pool under the banana tree

dandelions float across my line of vision, past the pine trees, into the blue sky. a palm tree hides them between swaying leaves. in front of it, a humming bird fleets from red to red on the hibiscus tree. a swimming pool murmurs temptingly in the shade, cicadas matching the rhythm with hypnotic whistling. an owl offers an occasional word of wisdom. couple of ants explore the contours of my now dark belly. a dog barks lazily in the distance. the sun shines. i sleep.

sleeping patterns II

9 hours sleep.

bit headache-y, but brimming with satisfaction for having won the battle against insomnia.
at least once.

paranoia

when i was a child, my mother told me, i couldn't sleep in a room where there was a face watching me. this eventually developed into an aversion to anything vaguely resembling a face: watches, some paintings, certain fruits. in their presence the child won't sleep.

later on as an adolescent, i went through a period of time where i just couldn't sleep at all. i would turn in my bed, read into the night, walk bleary eyed through the day, be gruff and confused. one day i worked out what it was: a coat hanging on a door, looked like the shape of a man, watching me, stalking me. i removed the coat, and sleep came back.

a sudden memory: in a classroom, having to come up with examples of different tenses and conjugations in the passive form in english, the only verb i could think of was "to watch": i am being watched, i was watched, i was being watched, i have been watched, i will be watched, i have been being watched...

turbulence

a heavenly music wakes me up. it sounds weird and otherworldly, like whales singing in the ocean.

half awake, half asleep, i prick my ears to hear the sound again. it comes from the sky, alright.

it comes from the air, pushed with some force by the passing planes, moving towards me in my sleep, wavelengths and physics and imagination.

later, slightly disappointed, slightly amazed, i go back to sleep.

4am-6am palenque

dawn at the station
Originally uploaded by ladelentes.

mexican music blares out of the idiot box. a couple and their children sleep on a blanket in the corner, surrounded by their possessions. cockroaches investigate the territory. a passanger nods off, awakes, stares. thick coffee brewed. taxi drivers gossip. sweat pours from the roof, from people, from cars. other insects awake. flurry of activity underfoot. light comes on. a dark shadow becomes a mystical tree. right in front of your eyes. it was always there.