A Bad Night

[newman]

Went to bed around 9:30... was woken around 3 a.m. by the core group of volunteers having a party a few tents away. Too damn loud. Got up, wandered into the terminal tent to discover the internet was down. Wrote a paper journal entry which I'll transcribe and backdate when I get back. Headed back to the tent around 4 a.m. to discover my bedding was wet. Went and slept in the car for a few hours. Mostly broken sleep and nightmares. The car is parked alongside what was Fred's Store -- a large food market. It was too easy to imagine myself swarmed by rats during the night. I don't know how they would get into the car, nightmares don't have to make sense.

There aren't any rats here. They all drowned. No birds, either. The silence away from the roads is sometimes only broken by man sounds or the drone of insects. There are a lot of dragonflies, beautiful glittering needles of color amongst the wreckage. I guess they eat mosquitoes.</P?

Comments

[herooftheage.livejournal.com]

I am rather constantly amazed at how people in these situations no longer seem to understand the value of sleep. There's an old army saying: "Never stand when you can sit, never sit wheh you can lie down, never lie down when you can sleep." When I was in the National Guard, it was considered a sin to wake a sleeping person up for no good reason.

These days it appears to be different - it's as if some basic disconnect has happened, and folks don't realize that if you're noisy when I'm sleepy, I'm not so likely to go gently into your good night.

My condolences about the nightmares. The only advice I have there is, as much as possible, to not look at the destruction, or dwell on it, or even write about it, except insofar as you need the release. It happened, and it is what it is. There is enough sadness that comes into our lives unbidden that there's no huge need to intentionally go put your feet in the fire. You went to help the people out - I suspect if you concentrate on the good happening around you, and take joy from your part in that, things might go a bit better internally. One can hope.