Janice Crow

Reflections - Apr 09

I don’t care much for sleep. Now, I realize that comment has just marked my name squarely in the “looney” column, but it’s true. If my body didn’t require it to function, I’d never sleep. You go unconscious for six to eight hours and only God knows what could happen. There could be a monster storm roll through and I’d sleep right through it. Shouldn’t I be in the basement? Then there’s that ancient water heater that pops and creaks when it’s on…what if that old pilot light goes out and it fills the house with gas? Suppose that spider I saw earlier in the bathroom…the one that got away…returns with reinforcements and has designated my right foot as ground zero. “Operation Big Toe” There’s plenty to worry about if you’re a mind to.

Sleep seems like an awful waste of time. I just can’t justify crawling into bed like a lazy louse when there’s so much left to do at the end of the day. There are closets to organize, songs to work on, demos to record, laundry to fold, e-mails to return, articles to write, pictures to hang, twenty year old afghans to finish…it goes on and on. To me, sleep says “I’m throwing in the towel on this day. Whatever is done is done. I give up.” If I stay awake, I may still be able to change something; but if I go to sleep, I’m giving in.

There’s a strange kind of claustrophobia that overtakes me when the lights go out. It’s really not that I’m “affeared” as my grandma used to say. It’s more like “the end”. When the sun goes down, it’s like the old test pattern on TV when the stations signed off for the day after The Late Late Show. It’s a way of saying “That’s ALL, folks, until tomorrow.” I always wanted to say, “Wait! You can’t sign off…I’m still awake and I’m not through watching.”

Although I’m not fond of sleep, I do hate being the last one in the house still awake. How dare my husband drift off to sleep when he knows full well if a thought crosses my mind about a song, I can’t bounce it off of him if he’s asleep. How rude! I guess I have been guilty a time or two of the old Three Stooges routine…“Hey! Wake up and go to sleep!”

I live in a small town and they do tend to roll up the sidewalks at 10:00 p.m., but thank God for the 24-Hour Walmart and Taco Bell. It’s not that I plan to run out for fabric softener and a Cheesy Gordita Crunch at 2:00 a.m., but I COULD! And that’s a comfort to me.

There have been times when my will to stay awake has been overcome by my body’s need for sleep and I’ve fallen asleep in spite of myself, leaving my list of things to lay there and ponder “unpondered”. When I wake up, I feel annoyed with myself that I wasted a perfectly good planning opportunity snoring away to the accompaniment of a whirring ceiling fan and a ticking clock.

My brother, I’m told, as a child used to walk around and around and around the table trying to stay awake. My son Jim, on the other hand, has practiced recreational napping for years and has single-handedly elevated sleeping to an Olympic event. I asked him once as he lounged comfortably in that hollowed-out sweet spot of the family room sofa, “How can you sit there doing nothing?”, to which he replied, “Once you get the hang of it, it’s easy.” So it seems. When he was nine, he drew a picture of a rather laid-back dinosaur that he named, “Relaxasaurus”. It’s not that Jim’s lazy. Far from it. He just understands relaxation. I don’t get it.

I’ve spent many nights finishing up some project while the family merrily snoozed, and it’s nice to know that while I’m up, there’s someone else awake that I can talk to any time. Someone whose opinion I can ask. Someone who doesn’t mind being consulted at 3:00 a.m. The Lord NEVER sleeps. He NEVER slumbers. He doesn’t even nod off. His agenda is more packed than we can even imagine. When day comes to a close in St. Louis and he hangs the moon, he’s not finished yet, for it’s just about time to lift the sun over Beijing.

In those three days following Jesus’ crucifixion, though the world presumed Him dead, He didn’t sleep. There were just too many important things to do, like making a journey to the pits of hell to take from satan’s hand the keys of death, hell and the grave. When He arose the third day, it was forever and He sits now at the right hand of the Father, just waiting for my call in the middle of some dark, lonely night when I have no answers…....only questions.

What assurance to know “He’s alive, alive, alive forever more”.

Happy Easter!

Janice Crow