Breath

Do you have trouble sleeping the whole night through?  If the answer is yes, I feel your pain.   

For me, broken nighttime sleep has been going on for some time.  Years.  I wrote a poem in 1998 that, I think, marks the time when said sleeping problem was still pretty new.  I think of it as ‘The true gift of the elves.’  [See Elder Idea below.]

Sometimes I get to sleep reasonably quickly, say fifteen minutes.  Sometimes I lay there for over an hour.  I often play music in the darkness of our bedroom.  Good thing for Cindy she usually comes to bed later than I do.  I hate for the music to disturb her -- which it does -- so I hope to be deep into a dependable sleep by the time she comes to bed. 

Before the iPod-on-the-night-stand phenomena, though, as I lay in bed wondering why I couldn’t fall asleep, I considered counting sheep.  Seemed a bit silly to me, to conjure fuzzy critters hopping a fence.  Still, it gave me an idea and instead of counting sheep, I took to counting my own breaths.  

I’d try to count backward from 100.  I remember plenty of times being in the 70s and wondering how I got there.  Or I’d become aware that I was stuck on 82.  Sooner or later I drifted off and all was okay.  I got to liking my self-appointed practice of counting breaths to find sleep. 

Some time later I became interested in the idea of zen mindfulness.  The concept of just being present in the moment -- without guilt -- drew me in.  There I learned that breath awareness was essential to a mindful practice.    

Still, as much as I’d like to really embrace a zen practice, as I have mentioned before here on The Back Porch, I have this deep, dark feeling that my Western upbringing somehow condemns me to the inability to slow down enough to find true meaning in mediation.  I mean, I can slow down for a while, but my natural tendency is keep up a good energy while spinning from one thing to another.  Today it’s blog writing and fire-tending, all while trying to balance in some book writing time in the process.  

Most times I conclude I cannot slow down long enough to find peace and meaning in meditation.  Bums me out.  I’d really like to be something more zen. 

Then the other afternoon I took a little time in my porch chair set up next to the wood stove down here in my basement space.  I sat up pretty straight and looked out into the winter landscape just beyond the sliding glass door.  Birds coming into the feeders were distracting, but I found myself breathing deliberately almost right away.  

Sitting in my chair, relaxed, breathing deeply, keeping my mind as free as I can, brings a kind of wholeness to my chest.  I’m not sure how deeply I breathe while going about work at my desk in front of the computer.  My guess it’s pretty shallow.  I find sitting up straight in a chair, deliberately taking in air and exhaling, is deeply emancipating in some primal way.  

I know the zen way tells me not to punish myself for what comes naturally.  I try not to, but my Catholic upbringing -- full of sin and responsibility -- is hard to shake.  If you get it wrong, you’re a sinner.  

Still, breathing in deeply and feeling air fill my lungs, brings me to a ground that feels absolutely right and quiet in that moment in which I exist.  And after all, it’s the only moment I have, right?   ;-)

Today’s elder idea:  An original poem from 1998:  

The mid-life waistline betrays the 

evolution of metabolism:  no longer 

can the Little Debbies and Ho-Ho’s 

pass the body unmarked, leaving it -- 

still --  the temple tempered on pick-

up football games, evening softball leagues, and 

work in the warehouse.  Too much TV, 

too, to blame.  More sitting, more 

spreading, more time with the ice cream bowl.  It 

can become almost mechanical:  the 

remote in one hand, Keeblers in the 

other:  press, bite, chew;  press, bite, chew. 

Chunky Chocolate Chips, too, have invaded the night 

as sedative, when sleep interrupts

itself with a waking oasis, unwanted, 

but unnegotiable.  The thought 

that just two cookies will put all 

aright, and night’s rhythm will return. 

Instead, a truth:  inside the semi-sweet

moment (with half-closed eyes, unwilling 

to give back any more consciousness than 

necessary) the stuff of chocolate and 

sugar, flour and shortening, melts over 

tongue buds -- and elevates taste over 

sleep for just a morsel of time -- enough to 

reflect at dawn -- with dragon’s mouth -- on

the true gift of the Elves.

Tom Schaefer

August 1998