4 June 2013

Tuesday

3:00 AM

Sleep hasn't arrived yet, maybe tonight it is playing coy with me. Feigning an appearance only to stay just tantalizingly out of reach. No sense chasing after it, that only imparts a sense of desire that almost ensures that it will remain further out of reach. Sleep cannot be captured, only gently merged with, slowly and in a very subtle manner. If done properly, conscious awareness just slips away, next thing I know, its morning.

Sometimes I have to wear my earbud headphones connected to an iPod full of some of my favorite tunes in order to sleep. Not that I am so particular, but as a defense against my neighbor's incessant love affair with bad television played too loudly, all night long. His favorite channel is one that specializes in old westerns and cowboy movies, many of which haven't seen air time in decades. There is nothing quite like hearing through a closed door, tough talking characters that are very pedestrianly banal as to be downright comical, speaking in harsh tones at others to achieve a harshness that befits the role, while a gunfight erupts.

Sometimes it is interesting to be treated to a good old fashion bout of gunplay while eating breakfast. The joy of hearing the explosions of 44 calibre gunfire and the occasional ricochet almost too periodically thrown in at a predictably regular interval, soon loses its allure. Even as a muffled background while listening to say, Beethoven's fifth symphony has ceased to become one of the delightfully quaint aspects of living in these very different conditions. Its one thing to describe it to others, its completely different to live it.

Here, incarcerated on this reservation, it is a nearly every night experience. It is so unlike what I came from, it is a real culture shock. I continue to marvel that most of the paid staff deal with many of these strange behaviors daily and seem not to raise an eyebrow. How do they cope with this collection of damaged brain induced behaviors is intriguing to me.

Now, my eyelids feel like heavy weights have been attached. It is growing increasingly more difficult to keep them open.

I gotta go.