Blame the ManBooker and Blue M&Ms...............

Feck son#1 and the ManBooker 2014 shortlist. I was shattered, up since 6.30am and running around after kids all day long. I picked son#1 up from work at 7pm and he presented me with a big packet of peanut M&Ms. He never gives me little pressies so I was chuffed; but I’m cursing him now in the wee small hours of the morning. I’m a glutton y'see and I scoffed all those M&Ms – even the blue ones, despite remembering that people used to say that blue Smarties made kids hyper, but sure that was Smarties and my blue colouring was in M&Ms. Let me tell yiz now, blue colouring on ANY sweets can make you hyper!

So there I was, in the leaba since 10pm but me mind whizzing around with all those jumbled up thoughts that lie in wait until my body stops moving; then demand my undivided attention. Feck this, I thought, and switched on the light again. I discarded the dectectivey yoke I had been reading for the ManBoooker shortlisted Ali Smith 's- ‘How to be both’. I’ve tried to read the shortlist every year for the last few and don’t always succeed but I’m determined this year.

Anyway whatever chance I had of sleeping before I started to read I’d none after reading the first few pages. Jesus, I thought, this poor fella’s mind is like mine right now – and I bet there weren’t any blue M&Ms back in the late 15^th century. I’ve read that the book changes further in and can be read in two different ways so looking forward to more of it. I heard somewhere ‘some books you read for the story, others for the quality of the prose and sometimes, just sometimes, you can get both’. I think Ms Smith’s book may well be one of those books. Review to follow.

But then my eyes got tired and I can’t read when my eyes are tired so up I got – routed the Jemser from his snoring in front of the telly up to the bed and I changed the channel to ‘Alibi’. That and a couple of rows of knitting will lull my brain into a false sense of security and my body will take advantage and shut the grey cells down. Ye can’t beat  late night TV and the knitting for knocking you out. ‘Course I had to tell the world all about it first so I’ll maybe give my insomnia cure a half hour extra to work to counteracter this typing on a screen. If all else fails I’ll clean the house – now THAT is guaranteed to give me at least four hours kip!

Hibernation

I think I have sleeping sickness. I swear - as soon as the weather turned even slightly cold I battened down the hatches and disappeared into the safety of sleep. Strictly speaking I probably have some type of a virus which is shutting me down but as the only symptoms are sleepiness and a desire for quiet I think I may be regressing to whatever creature I evolved from.

All this would be fine and dandy if I didn't also have to earn a living, feed a family, amuse children, placate a husband, write the odd bit, clean a house, talk to siblings and friends, take part in the things I enjoy doing AND find time to wash myself. Very hard when you keep nodding off.

As each day/ night passes where I have slept six or seven hours more than I usually do I wonder am I going insane. I don't feel insane. Although apparently I tried to reef the hair out of my current husband's head in the middle of last night. He has quite thick hair and I got a good handful of it. He had to slap my hands into wakefulness. Must admit I'm smiling as I write about that. There is a certain satisfaction in knowing that at least in sleep I am letting my true feelings find a way out! Poor man.

Although when I think of the dark thoughts I have had about numerous colleagues in recent months I think I better lock the bedroom door when I sleep, in case a vivid dream has me stalking the main street in Swords in my fleecey red dressing gown with a very large poker in my hand looking for irritating fellow public servants. Hmmm. Parents should start telling naughty kids about me. Might improve behaviour about the town. Would I get a long sentence do you think? Would subliminal irritation be sufficient justification for bateing some irritating twit about the gaff. Probably not.

Ah well. I suppose all the nights I normally spend rambling through the house cleaning and thinking and occasionally writing because my brain won't shut down were due to catch up on me at some time. I wish someone would invent an Evelyn remote control. It would be a huge success. Yiz could shut me up. Rewind me. Pause me or quite simply turn me off whenever I was doing your head in. I'd be first in the queue to buy one!

Darkest Hour Before the Dawn....

I recently heard a diary piece by Olivia O’Leary on RTE’s Drivetime and, as always, Ms O’Leary gave me food for thought. For that is what she talked of – thought. In the increasing electronic clamour of today’s world it is often hard to find a spot to sit and ponder or write or dream. And yet out of such quiet moments have come all of humankind’s best ideas. All those Eureka moments as thinkers leapt from their chosen place of safety and comfort to tell the world a blindingly obvious truth.

Then the rest of us could cry – ‘Yes! Of course! Sure, why didn’t we think of that!’. Often because we were to busy simply living – ensuring our families and friends have enough to eat, are clothed and warm and not in pain. But in the Western World where increasingly these essential physical commodities are not as hard won as they once were, and where technology has made the daily grind of earning a living – one that simply that prevents hunger and discomfort - much easier and faster, one would think man had increased time for thought. Quiet reflection, moments to contemplate the beautiful, the sublime – to puzzle out the conundrums of the world.

Instead there is this constant background electronic hum. I occasionally suffer from insomnia and have long given up twisting and turning in bed vainly waiting for sleep. Instead I get up and toddle about downstairs. I used to listen to the radio and clean my house. In recent years I discovered writing and use these quiet hours as some of my more productive ones in getting ideas, plot lines, character descriptions from my fevered brain onto the page. I often use the time to read – to absorb another’s thoughts in the wee small hours.

One night recently I noticed I was being distracted by firstly an electronic hum and secondly a winking light in the direction of the ‘off’ PC. After disconnecting 8 , EIGHT, plugs I eventually had both visual and aural peace. As the sun rose I heard the dawn chorus, heard starlings shifting and scratching in the eaves – saw the rabbit nose his way out of his hutch , lift up on his hind legs and sniff the air before shaking himself and lope off to feed on the last of my dahlias. I drank it all in and thought. Really thought, about the wonder of life and the extraordinary in the ordinary.

So here’s my suggestion - not that you all develop insomnia – ye would make my quiet time too noisy if ye were all up - but every day for the next ten days find ten minutes. Shut off all (ALL-including your phones!) electronic devices. Sit and stare, sniff the air, look through your window, pray or dream if you want or think or not. Just enjoy being. You might get to like it.