Winter Bedtime

 

Actual Hawaiian Waves, Maui, 2015

I have an elaborate bedtime routine in the winter months. When darkness lingers for extra hours at both ends of the day, I need a routine to tell my body when to wake and when to sleep. There is no set time for the routine to begin, it all depends on when my creative brain is tired. Some nights it is barely 6:30 and I find my eyes drooping. Other nights, 1am will slide onto the clock dial as I look up from my typing in astonishment. 

I stand up carefully, making my way towards the bathroom trying to step on the less creaky spots on the floor. Toothbrush in my mouth, I return to the kitchen, tidying for morning, putting away any leftovers from dinner that remain on the stove. I tiptoe across the living room carpet and grab a few chunks of firewood for the stove then throttle down the damper, taking a moment to bask in the warmth of the cast iron. I slip on muck boots and let the old dog out, careful to not let him wander too far. Too much time in the cold air will wake me back up again and I don’t like rejuvenation at night time. But I do like to look at the stars.

On the north side of the house, facing the mountain side, there are no street lights, just a couple twinkles from the neighbors’ houses. The winter moon rises against spiny black pines on the hillside, bathing the snowy landscape in pale blue. The work trucks sit idle in the driveway, frost creeping up the windshields. Cat comes running out of the thicket, also ready for bed. While the dog has a given name, Cat is eponymous, with her tail vertical like a monkey, running as if every step in the snow is painful, shaking off any lingering frost before vanishing up the attic ladder as soon as I reopen the door. I will see her again at 5:30 am, when she lands on my feet like a ninja in search of breakfast. Any other interruption will bring swift ejection from the warmth of the house, a lesson that she has learned the hard way a dozen times already this winter. I have a very low tolerance of disruption during the sleeping hours. One strike and you are out, or so I tell Cat repeatedly, though I doubt it registers in her scheming brain.

The wave of warm air washes over me like a sleeping spell as I remove the boots.  His outdoor business complete, I shepherd the old dog to his dog bed in the mudroom, then grab the five gallon pet food buckets and place them in the doorway, preventing the serial wanderer husky from pacing the upper floor all night. His claws click on the wood and tile of the living room and kitchen as he journeys from room to room for no apparent reason. Two nights of this incredible journey going in random circles upstairs and he was forever banished to the mudroom in the nighttime. Two strikes and out for him; the extra strike a product of fourteen years of sleeping outside in the snow. Now he is an inside dog, which he seems to enjoy. 

I descend slowly into the basement bedroom by the glow of the LED twinkle lights that have been strung along the wooden railing. Sliding my feet across the warm Mexican tile floor, I totter my way through the mic stands and guitars that stand waiting for the morning recording session towards the bed. I open a white noise podcast and select ocean waves, eight hours of crashing Hawaiian breakers and place the speaker on the shelf above our heads.  I carefully lay my clothes out on the floor, knowing that the radiant slab will heat them evenly all night so that when I wake up, it will feel like I pulled them right out of a dryer. Then I pull the heavy insulated curtain across the sliding glass door, leaving a six inch gap where my head will lie in bed.

I fussily mess with my pillows and blankets, arranging them just so. Around four am, despite no change in temperature, I like to pull the extra quilt over me. I fold it in the center of the bed so that I can grab it in the midst of a left to right rollover and it cocoons me. I fall into the pillow as if from a great height, crashing into bedtime. With my last thoughts of today, I look southward out the sliver of glass. Over the deck and the roof of the woodshed, I see the streetlights of Broadway, old buildings slumbering as their chimneys steam into the darkness. The post office glows like a night light illuminating the snow and beyond that is darkness. The ocean waves rumble from a thousand miles away as I slide off into dreamland again.