Home Sick

As my mother would sometimes say, "Och, I'm no weel. No weel at a'". That's how I feel, not well at all. I canna' sleep right and my eating is regulated and recorded and isn't giving me the pleasure I'd like. Poor wee me, eh?

It reminds me of the old Scottish grace," Some ha'e meat and canna' eat and some ha'e nane that want it, but we ha'e meat and we can eat and so the Lord be thank-et." I have the meat and I can eat and I know I should be grateful but I canna' get to there from here today. Aye, I know, I'm a wee bit doon, and just not feeling as I'd like to.

Can that happen from lack of sleep, sustained over a long period, say 6 years? Probably. A few nights ago I managed to have SEVEN whole hours of sleep, broken only by a single bathroom trip in the middle. And it was glorious. My eyes didn't sting and water, my demeanor was magnanimous to all - but alas has not been replicated. I reviewed my food intake for that day and saw that I'd eaten something everything 2-3 hours, thus strictly regulating my blood sugar which tends to low. My nutritionist pounced on this as a clue to my insomnia and was very excited by the good news. But last night it was up at 2.30am for 4 hours then back to a light doze for a couple of restless hours and the usual dragging out of bed this morning. Blah blah blah.

So, in need of some cheering up, I rang up my dear old auntie Eileen in England, who's my mother's sister. She still speaks in the Glasgwegian accent of her youth and has nothing but funny stories to tell. She and her husband, my uncle Geoff, ran a pub for many years after she trained as a barmaid in other pubs to learn the business. She's a natural entertainer is auntie Eileen, and listening to her is just like going to the pub without the hassle of cigarette smoke and booze, which suits me fine.

I commiserated with her about the volcanic ash from Iceland that currently has all air traffic grounded in Europe and kidded her about not being able to take her private jet to Paris for the weekend. She rifled through her mental file cabinet and quickly found a story under Iceland about the time she was working as a barmaid when she got a call from her older brother, my uncle Johnny. He and his wife and a couple of guests wanted to drop in for a visit that night on their way back from a holiday somewhere. She agreed of course, but was caught off guard with food supplies since the shops were closed for the mid week half-day early closing that used to be common in those days. They lived in a tiny village with one grocery shop and if you didn't have food, you had to manage. (note that half-day early closing did not apply to pubs). So her boss, the pub owner, told her not to worry and supplied her with frozen chips (french fries) frozen peas and frozen gammon steaks (ham) for their dinner. The only problem she foresaw was cooking frozen chips because she'd always just made her own fresh ones. I began laughing at that and she told me, wait, we aren't at the funny bit yet.

So in walk uncle Johnnie, auntie Yvonne and the two mysterious guests, whose brown skin tones and lack of English were tactfully explained by uncle John as due to their being native Eskimos from, tada, Iceland !! "Bloody hell, Carol" says auntie E, "imagine how I felt serving frozen food to Eskimos. It's a good thing I didn't serve them fish fingers (fish sticks) at least it was gammon."

After a good chuckle, she gave me an update on uncle G's Alzheimers, "getting worse" and avoided details on how she's affected. He sleeps in front of the tv during the day and she can't talk to him much. I have a feeling she welcomes my phone calls just for the chat and a toddle down memory lane. She says she thinks she should go back to the library and start reading again and recommended Emil Zola and Ken Follet to me. I now have homework in the form of a book report, which is just another welcome excuse to call her again in a few weeks.

By the end of the call my spirits were a bit brighter. Sometimes you just need a touch of home, be it a voice, a food, a smell or a few notes of music. I worry what that will mean for my kids when I'm gone. I worry too much about that I know, but I think insomnia feeds the worry bone marrow and keeps it going longer than I'd like. So later today I'll go for a wee walk somewhere, away from the laundry that has piled up this week and listen to birds, get the spring breeze going through my hair and shake out some cobwebs.