I don’t sit and wait
I don’t give a damn
I don’t see the point at all
No footprints in the sand
I would give you all my love
Nothing else is free
Open up your heart to me
And I would be your slave
- bowie 

I slept a bit.  Maybe from 10pm to midnight or so.  That’s when I woke up and the wheels began to spin.  You know how that goes.  Those everything and nothing thoughts that keep calling for attention right as you are about to drift off.  Right then, when the world begins to fade they call you back to the conscious world.  It’s not like strange thoughts screaming for my attention are anything new of course, I’d just prefer they let me sleep sometimes.  Often they don’t.

Since I arrived back in Wisconsin from Puerto Rico some months back, I’ve slept in a bed all of 3 nights.  The rest of those months have been divided between a couch and floor.  I could of course say life is complicated, and it is, but in this case the real problem has been that I just can’t seem to sleep in a bed since I’ve been back.  I’ve also not taken to quiet at night very well.  So, most every night these days I’m laid out on the living room floor with some old BBC program running quietly in the background.  Subliminally I’ve probably memorized every line from Father Ted to the point I’m quoting Dugal in business meetings.  Sad, I know!  Thing is I know there has been this psychological cusp that I’ve been sitting on for some time.  It’s hard enough to sit on a fence, and even harder to sleep on one.  I certainly envy people who can see things with clear simplicity.  I’ve often said, that this is one of the things I do love so much about sea kayaking.  On the water your direction is clear.  You know what you need to do and you do it.  Waves and weather come at you each day and can create havoc, but at the same time you do not seek to understand their motives.  They just do what they do.  The sea has no hidden agenda, nor does it have justifications (good or bad) for its actions. The sea, is just the sea.

Last year when winter set in I wrote quite often of the malaise I’d been surfing through and over the following months I made many aggressive and sometimes ill advised right turns. Most of that I’m sure is driven by the fact that I keep thinking that you have to move.  That you can’t hope to be carried or wait for solutions to come to you.  You have to go out and find them.  Jump off a few cliffs.  Some would say of course that this sort of “leap before you look” mentality is not very smart, and they are correct.  On the other hand, it’s also very easy to let fear and complacency grab hold of you and in the end cause you to do nothing.  To avoid complacency I’m given to having my own little Gallipolis’ now and again.  I just jump out of the trenches and run into no man’s land and count myself lucky if I find myself still standing in the end.  Life is sometimes more a battle than an adventure.

I think that’s why you often find me on the defending side of those folks who take risks. I think what many people miss is that if those risk takers didn’t push ahead, they would be no good to anyone.  It’s not as simple for some to settle into a “normal” lifestyle.  I’d bet most of these crazy folks do try. Yet the sirens are always back there calling you out and no matter what you do, you can’t silence them.  They wake you in the middle of the night. Yeah, you could say it’s the voices in your head. . . or maybe just the inability to function in the normal world. I doubt there is any good way to explain that to some, but it there just the same. Thing is, those close to you know that.  On a level they want to help you quiet the voices, yet on another level they want to go with you.  It’s a paradox of sorts.  They know it’s nothing to do with such superficial things as “recognition”. (yeah, it can look that way to some, sometimes) Yet, more often than not it’s really about quieting the voices. The hope for those who support you is that when you reach that personal Nirvana, everyone shares in the reward. Even if that reward is nothing more than a calming of the mind. Of course it’s very possible that the sirens call you to an island that can never be reached.  Maybe it’s just some form of quiet madness.  Certainly could be.

It’s almost 5am. Is there a point to all this?  Not really. If you’ve read this far I’m sorry for not having a big pay off at the end.  I just couldn’t sleep and it seemed like writing some of those wandering thoughts down might help.