Sleep

I have struggled for my entire life with insomnia, and much of the time have required some sort of prescription medication just to get me to sleep.

It's an odd malady, not being able to do this most basic of things that seems to come naturally to everyone else. Certainly, it has always come naturally to everyone I've ever slept in the same room with.

From Mom, to every college roommate and commune-mate, to every boyfriend up to and including the current one. Every dog, from the hyper pittie puppies to the anxious shepherds and the stiff older dogs and everyone in between--all have slept like the proverbial log. 

Over the years, I've heard every variation of deep breathing, nighttime grunting and mumbling, and snoring--sometimes for hours on end-- as I've struggled to get to sleep. 

There have been periods off and on when I've done better--years ago, when I camped and slept outside in Arizona and Utah during a six-week backpacking program on the Colorado Plateau, and more recently when I traveled in Guatemala and slept using only an occasional Benadryl. 

And for the past few days, as we've settled into a rhythm with Sandy and gotten used to having a tiny female pit bull packet snuggled in between us. 


It's not that I don't love my other, larger packets of sleeping joy, or that they don't bring me comfort.


It's just that there's something about this particular package of warm breath and snores that allows my mind to be at peace.






Maybe it's that she's so tiny, and sweet, and vulnerable.


Maybe it's the well-being that comes from knowing that we very probably saved her life, and feeling how worthwhile that is.











And maybe its the comforting sensation of again having a compact muscular little red girl dog around. A red girl dog who reminds me with her spunk and her spirit of Tashi, whose ears and breath and snores I have never stopped missing since she passed away in April. 


Tashi is now in the midst of a long sleep, or maybe she's already entered a new life as a grumpy little grizzly or a spunky salmon swimming upstream or a Buddha incarnate whose growls bring instant enlightenment. 


Or maybe just a little bit of her spirit is making its way to us through our little foster dog, bringing her mom comfort and sleep at long last.