This week has been absurdly tiring. It seems like no matter what I do, I cannot get enough sleep. I went to bed on Wednesday night at 8:30pm. I slept until about 6:45. I was still tired all day. Last night I managed to stay awake til 9:30. But today I am walking around as if there is a disconnect between me and the world. I feel so tired that I feel almost numb.
This feeling of not being able to summon any get-up-and-go is something that I like to call “mud in my veins.” That’s what it feels like. Instead of blood, I’ve got mud and it isn’t exactly energizing. Maybe it’s because of the image of slogging through mud. How it sucks onto your shoes and slows you down. Or maybe it’s something to do with making mud pies and how heavy they are—a big damp, solid heaviness in your hands.
Earlier in the week I blamed it on the weather. I figured that the heat was waking me up. Or maybe it was making Scout think that he needed to be outside doing hot weather cat things and he was waking me up. But the weather has turned much milder and my sleepiness hasn’t abated. So it may be time to start considering more hypochondriacal causes. Or more coffee.
The best part of living in California has to be the weather. As a native, I used to mostly take it for granted and even whined about the coastal fog, the less-than-balmy climate of SF in Summer, and the occasional (not frequent enough actually) downpour. 2 and a half years in pretty, lush, green (if you can’t read between the lines here, all of this spells R-A-I-N-Y) England washed away those thoughts. For now.
I’ve always thought it was an interesting convention when a writer used the weather as an overlay for the general mood/tone of a storyline too. Overcast, grey skies seem to always signify a less than happy fortune, while clear skies or even fluffy-white-cloud be-speckled blue suggest every little thing is going to be all right.
"All the preceding afternoon and night heavy thunderstorms had hissed down upon the meads, and washed some of the hay into the river; but this morning the sun shone out all the more brilliantly for the deluge, and the air was balmy and clear."
It’s an easy and possibly even an instinctively recognizable symbolism. But more than just the idea that fair weather means a chance for an easier, more comfortable existence, sunshine also boosts our moods. Nothing is quite as cheering as sunshine, warm breezes, and clear skies.
And, of course. thought of clear skies and sunshine always lead me to think of
"How happy is the blameless vestal's lot
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!"
I’ve been (not surprisingly, I suppose) thinking a bit about Eternal Sunshine… and I wonder if we really did have access to such a procedure, how many memories would we be left with at the end of our lives. Because I suspect the temptation to eradicate a fair few of them might be too great.
