A Bad Night’s Sleep

Some things just don’t seem necessary, you know? Like bringing sand to the beach. Or rocks to the mountains. Or World Series hopes to a Rockies game.

Nonetheless, a pair of Swiss brothers have decided that what the world really needs is a bad’s night sleep.

Billed as a “zero star suite,” the brothers – yes, of course, they’re artists – are renting out a double bed on a platform with a couple of bedside tables, lamps and no doors, walls or ceiling whatsoever. According to Reuters, “The intention is to make guests think about the problems in the world … and inspire them to act differently.”

The cost: just under $340. That’s with room service, mind you.

So, let me just ask the audience … anyone who needs help thinking about all the troubles in the world, or even just in your corner of it, please raise your hand.

Anyone? Anyone?

Yeah, I kind of thought so.

These days, it’s absurdly easy to dwell on the troubles of the world, not least because we seem to have bought the Whitman Sampler selection. Whatever your faction, philosophy or belief, there’s enough out there to keep anyone up at night. Climate change and court rulings. The economy and gas prices. Ukraine and … well, you get the idea.

And of course, none of us come to these problems with a blank slate. Even in the best of times, we’re all dealing with struggles of our own: family, health or a dozen more besides. If anything, we have too many alarms blaring on the deck. Most are in the “do not ignore” category but each of us only comes with one body and mind to attend to it all. (Well, unless you bought the Doctor Who Time Traveler Accessory Kit, in which case I want to speak with you right after this column.)

It’s easy to get overwhelmed. And depressed. And, well, sleepless.

What’s a person to do?

Something.

No, that’s not a word I left in the column while trying to think of a more profound phrase. It’s what we do. In the end, it’s all we can do.

Something. 
Our piece of the problem. In our place. At our time. However small it may seem.

Some of you may remember that I collect quotes the way some people collect action figures or classic cars. And for a long time, a 120-year-old quote from Edward Everett Hale has had a prominent place in my collection:

“I am only one, but I am one.

I cannot do everything, but I can do something.

The something I ought to do, I can do.

And by the grace of God, I will.”  

Every effort by an individual looks small. But none of them is meaningless. And enough “smalls” put together over time just may add up to something pretty big.

That’s not an excuse to sit back and trust that everything will work out. I’m peddling hope here, not optimism. What’s the difference? Hope commits. It rolls up its sleeves. As another writer put it, by acknowledging that problems can be solved, hope assumes an obligation to get up and do something.

It doesn’t guarantee “easy.” Heck, it doesn’t guarantee anything. But hope calls you to do what you can, where you can.  

Overwhelming? Sure. But not futile.

I’ll indulge in one last quote, from a science fiction author named Leo Frankowski. In one of his books, a modern Polish time traveler explains to a medieval lord that while his people don’t live to fight, they do fight for keeps:

“We fight long wars, and we win,” he says. “Once we fought for a hundred thirty years, when the very name of our country was erased from the map. And we won.”

That’s hope. That’s commitment.

That’s us.

And hopefully, it’s something that helps you sleep a little better at night.

Words of Honor

“He wrapped himself in quotations – as a beggar would enfold himself in the purple of Emperors.”

— Rudyard Kipling

 

Slowly but surely, the words are claiming the wall.

Muhammad Ali watches from one point, Saint Paul from another. Novelists share space with masters of social media. It’s a small crowd right now, but I know how quickly it will grow, piling wit onto wisdom onto timeless endurance.

I ought to know. We’ve been here before.

And as before, it’s more comforting than a few rows of taped computer paper has any right to be.

 

“In the garden of literature, the highest and the most charismatic flowers are always the quotations.”

— Mehmet Murat ildan

 

It started, as it often does, with Heather’s health. My wife is a lovely, funny, creative and tough-minded person. But she also tends to attract chronic illness the way a car accident attracts rubberneckers. Years ago, before we met, it was Crohn’s disease. A couple of years after we married, ankylosing spondylitis came along for the ride. Endometriosis used to be part of the mix, and we’ve never been quite sure if lupus was milling about in the crowd or not.

Lately, as some of you have read here, there’s been something new. We’re still pinning down all the details – which is a bloodless way of saying that we’ve been going through a lot of sleepless nights and painful days trying to figure out what in blue blazes is going on.

One morning I had just checked in with my boss to mention that I was going to have to work from home – again – in order to help Heather through the day. She sent back her best wishes for the struggle – and a few words from Muhammad Ali for comfort.

“The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses,” the words read, “behind the lines, in the gym and out there on the road, long before I dance under those lights.”

And all of a sudden, I remembered.

 

“Have you ever observed that we pay much more attention to a wise passage when it is quoted, than when we read it in the original author?”

— Philip Gilbert Hamerton

 

The last time something like this happened, back in Kansas, Heather had had to spend far too much time in the bathroom. (Having Crohn’s in combination with severe back pain will tend to do that.) So, to make life a little more bearable – or at least entertaining – I started to paper the opposite wall with quotes.

Like many writers, I’ve always been a fan of the well-chosen word, whether from prophets or Muppets. A good quote is a quick moment in life when your mind suddenly blinks and then laughs, or winces, or nods “Yes – yes, that’s exactly how it is.” They’ve decorated my college papers, my desks, even my email at work.

And now, they decorated my bathroom. Heather found the first one and I quickly gave it a lot of brothers and sisters. Soon, you couldn’t drop a hand towel without coming across the latest aphorism or wisecrack.

Now, we seemed to be in a similar place. Maybe it was time for a similar remedy. This particular illness was keeping her confined to bed for much of the day, so I picked a readily visible bedroom wall and went to work.

Some space went to encouragement. (“We must live lives of unstoppable hope.” – Stant Litore.)

Some was claimed by humorous sympathy. (“I’m not clumsy. It’s just that the floor hates me, the tables and chairs are bullies, and the wall gets in the way.” – Liza Mahone.)

And some, inevitably, went to doctor snark. (“I firmly believe that if the whole materia medica could be sunk to the bottom of the sea, it would be all the better for mankind and all the worse for the fishes.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.)

I don’t know. Maybe it’s not doing anything but using up ink and Scotch tape. But maybe, in its own small way, it helps. It’s a way to bring life over the walls, to remind us that someone’s been there before, that there’s more to think about than “Ow, ow, ow.”

Maybe, to borrow from Miguel de Cervantes, these “short sentences drawn from long experience” are better medicine than we know. I hope so. I really do.

Sticks and stones can break our bones. But words can maybe heal us.