Sleeping Under The Stars

When I was a kid, houses just didn't have cooling of any kind. Even "rich" families had no more than shutters and fans to combat summer heat.

Our house stayed cooler than many others. Its largest walls faced east/west, and there were large shade trees to the south, so it often felt cool even in the middle of summer. That was in the daytime, though; at night, it was often hot and stuffy.

I can't stand the sensation of wind on my body, or "white noise," so fans were never the solution. An open window just seemed to funnel every traffic noise straight into my head. I absolutely must have covers, at least from the knee down, and preferably from the waist down, even when I'm broiling. Summer nights, it goes without saying, could be miserable, especially when you shared a room and a double bed with a sibling.

I was probably about 11 or 12 when I first asked my mom if I could please, for the love of all that's holy, just sleep outside. It was misery inducing to be playing outdoors in the dark - and I was always outdoors as a kid - and then walk into our comparative oven of a house and be expected to sleep. My sister loved everything that I hated - an open window, a fan and no covers - so sharing a bed made us both, um, grouchy.

We lived on a fairly busy street, but since my parents had purchased the property when it was "way out in the sticks," on a dirt road, they had an acre and a third. We had a huge fenced back yard, and it was impossible to see even the next door neighbors.

I've always been a very solitary being, so the thought of being alone did not disturb me in the slightest. I would have been deeply disconcerted to be within view of the neighbors or passersby on either street (we lived on a corner lot). I felt perfectly safe in the yard. Plus, there were two dogs in the long, narrow kennel that separated the back yard from the horse pasture, and they'd sound the alarm if there were any intruders. I was a tiny bit nervous about the fact that the back door had to be left unlocked, so I could go in and use the bathroom, but the risk seemed small.

We took vacations every year, week long excursions to mountains, lakes, deserts and rivers. Until I was 16, I had only spent two nights in motel rooms; we camped everywhere we went. Even when we weren't camping, we'd be someplace like my cousin's cabin at Mount Shasta, so cots and sleeping bags were familiar. The chaise in the back yard was more comfortable and more padded than sleeping on the ground, which was the vacation norm. I have never been a prissy girl, afraid of bugs and bats or the dark.

The first night was a relief beyond description. It was cool, quiet, private and blissful. "Can I do that every night?" I wanted to know the next morning.

I loved those nights lying on the chaise, looking up at the sky. Staring up into the night sky has never made me feel small and insignificant; it makes me feel connected to everything and everyone. I loved the sound of the crickets, and the occasional songs of frogs. It was just blissful.

I would lie awake and think, and think, and ponder. It was beautiful.

I started spending every summer night in the back yard. It was always a little disappointing when it got too cold to sleep outside, some time around the beginning of the school year.

By the time I was about 14, I could accurately tell you the time any time between about 9:00 p.m. and midnight just by looking up. I had spent so many hours watching the stars crawl across the sky that I knew that if they were in this position, it was about 9:45; if they were here, it was about 11.

Once when I was in high school, a group of us had just left the movies, and someone wanted to know what time it was. I looked up and said, "It's about 10:30." I was instantly subject to all kinds of teasing. "What was that?" "What are you doing?" "How can you tell?" "Do you think you're Magellan or something?"

"No. I just know. See, those stars over there..."

"AH HA HA HA HA!" My peers were unimpressed and unconvinced.

Someone looked at their watch and said, "You're wrong! It's 10:40!"

"First of all, I said, 'about.' And we've been standing here arguing for almost five minutes."

"You just estimated based on what time the movie started."

Well, smartypants, then figure out what time it is on your own. See if I trot out my parlor tricks.

Sometimes, I really miss those nights of lying outside, looking at the stars. My home now is a two story house between other two story houses - I can't do anything in my yard without someone watching. Not that they'd be interested in watching me sleep; I just can't be comfortable in view of so many windows.

When it's dark and cool, and the crickets are chirping, everything in my body relaxes. I'd love a chaise, or a hammock, or better yet, a big comfy bed, out under the stars.

It's starting to get uncomfortably warm at night. Last night it was hot and stuffy, and I missed my days on the back yard chaise.

If I'm ever in a nursing home some day, and they complain that I wander off at night, just tell them to let me sleep on the patio. Trust me - we'll all be happier that way.

In Sickness and in Health

Ah, illness. There you are. I know you must have missed me, but I really didn't miss you.

If I could, I would sleep through any illness in its entirety. We'd figure out some way for my family to slap patches on me that would enable me to absorb medication and nutrients through my skin, and I'd just sleep until the illness was gone. Doesn't that sound good?

There are apparently some really nasty illnesses going around right now. My husband has been sicker than I've ever seen him, and I've known him since he was 22. He doesn't usually get sick. On the rare occasions that he does, it isn't very severe and goes away quickly.

Once, he was uncharacteristically feverish and miserable. I know how that feels, and I know that he likes to be fussed over, so I made him tea, brought him blankets and medicine, and cooed over him. He fell asleep, slept all night, and woke up feeling fit as a fiddle.

"Wow, that virus really kicked my butt," he said.

While happy that he felt better, I was also outraged. "NO! It did NOT! It CANNOT be a butt-kicking if it lasts all of 4 hours!"

He was puzzled. "But it was a miserable 4 hours."

"I don't care! That's not a butt-kicking! That barely qualifies as sick! That's just… mutant! You're a mutant."

In the last 6 weeks or so, though, he's gone from strep to bronchitis and back to strep. The bronchitis really did kick his butt; he was barely functional for a week. That's par for the course with me, but it's unheard of for him. He has never had active, misery inducing symptoms for that long.

I did everything I could to roll up the welcome mat and hang a "no vacancy" sign, but the bronchitis moved into my lungs anyway. Aside from the growly voice it gives me, there's nothing good about this. Well, except for the huge, horse pill-looking antibiotics that I'm on. Those are pretty good. Yay for modern medicine.

Now, it's about getting enough sleep and keeping warm.

Years ago, when my husband and I were first living together and figuring out how the other person ticked, he came home from work when I was sick to find me wrapped in a quilt on the couch. That's pretty standard when I'm sick. He'd barely closed the door when he said, "It's stifling in here," took off his shirt, and turned the ceiling fan on high. I made a noise like a Bloom County cartoon – "AIEEEE!"

"Are you trying to kill me? I'm SICK!"

"I know, but it's hot in here. I'm just trying to get the air moving."

"It's an arctic wind, blowing right on me!"

I unwound my quilt and scrabbled down the hall to the bedroom, griping the whole way, and cocooned in more layers of bedding. In the living room, Dan was opening a window.

"Don't do that! It's cold out there!"

"It's like 80 degrees in here! You're going to melt me!"

I generally can't stand the sensation of wind, at all, and that's when I'm not sick. I can't sleep if I'm breathing on my own arm; I have to pull at least the sheet over it. If my husband is literally breathing down my neck (or on my arms or worse, into my face) in bed, I can't sleep; I shove him over to the other side of the bed. Dan would like to sleep with a fan on. I've tried, and I just can't do it.

A few years ago, he again came home to me sick on the couch, wearing sweats and thick socks, curled into a fetal position under a down quilt."Awww," he said, and snaked his hand up the covers and up the pant leg to rub my calf. He was shocked when my skin felt chilled to the touch. "You're cold!" he said.

"Of course I'm cold. I'm sick. Why do you think I'm sitting here like this?"

He had to check the rest of me to see if the calf was an anomaly, so he reached under my shirt to feel my tummy, which was also cold to the touch. "How is that physically possible?" he demanded. "How can you be cold underneath all that?"

"I don't know. Gimme back my covers." I tucked the comforter back around me tightly. I never bother anymore to think about how it's possible to be cold, because I obviously am. The best I can guess is that my body is so busy fighting the illness that it has no energy left to generate heat. This would also explain why I get sick if I'm out in the cold for too long – in order to try and keep me warm, my body diverts all its energy there, and I have nothing left to fight off any germs. Whether that's accurate or not, the fact remains that cold often makes me sick, and illness further damages my ability to make my own heat.

This is part of our deep seated temperature incompatibility, my husband's and mine. He is always hot. Always. And he stubbornly refuses to wear shorts because he doesn't think he looks good in them, which is maddening in so many ways. It'll be summer, I'll be in shorts or capris and a short sleeved shirt and he'll be in jeans and, frequently, a long sleeved shirt, and he'll crank up the evaporative cooler. "Quit blowing cold air on my bare skin and take something off!" I'll gripe.

I have sat in chairs he's recently vacated and been overheated just by the residual body heat. He's like a furnace.

I, on the other hand, have a standard body temperature of about 97 degrees. I get cold easily. I can't tell you how often I've had to get out of bed to put on a pair of socks because my feet are too cold for me to sleep. I can't let them touch each other or any other part of me when they're that way; instead of body contact warming them up, it causes whatever they touch to get colder. When I'm sick, I feel unreasonably cold, all the time. I cannot sleep when I'm cold.

When our family made a visit once to the Exploratorium in San Francisco, we stood in front of a screen that showed heat signatures. The warmer something was, the more it glowed green. My husband and middle daughter were bright green apparitions, chuckling over the fact that some body parts, like armpits, glowed even brighter. My oldest daughter and I couldn't see ourselves, and everyone was starting to wonder if we were somehow standing outside the view of the sensors. Then, we moved directly between the rest of our family and the sensors, and finally showed up - as black, body shaped voids in front of their glowing greenness. "I can't believe you're so cold you don't even show up! That's wierd!" Middle Daughter said. "Welcome to our world," I said.

Our bedroom is unheated (long story), which is great for Dan. Most people sleep better in a cool room, but I can't do it. I sleep with a comforter in the summer. In the winter, I have layers and layers on the bed. (Dan frequently sleeps without covers, even in the winter.)

The old upper crust custom of separate bedrooms makes a bit more sense to me now than it did when I was a kid.

Dan bought me a heated mattress pad, which is one of my favorite birthday gifts ever. It says not to sleep with it on (or you risk burning yourself), but I can see no other reason for its existence.

The first time I got sick after he bought it, Dan encouraged me to go to bed in my thick sweats and socks and turn the bed heater on. I did – I couldn't feel the heater at all. He didn't believe me until he did the hand-against-bare-skin test again and discovered that my skin still felt positively refrigerated. The thick clothes kept the heat from getting through. This made no sense to Dan – for him, staying warm is about holding body heat in. For me, it's about getting outside heat. With the sweats on, I needed the heater at a 9 before I could feel anything. With bare legs, a 2 or 3 felt toasty.

Even better, I bought a new comforter that's so warm I rarely need the bed heater. When I was a kid, we had quilts that were cotton exterior and cotton batting – those things weighed a ton. I loved them. We also had down and feather mix filled quilts that were so heavy and warm. Our sleeping bags were canvas with cotton batting and flannel lining. Newfangled nylon things with polyester fluff just never felt as warm, until I got this comforter. Back in the day, we called this filling "polyester fiberfill," but my new comforter touts it as, "hypoallergenic down alternative." Well, la-di-dah. Still, it's so warm that I occasionally overheat and have to peel it back.

I sense signs that I will feel human again soon. I did some laundry – yay! – and minor straightening. Then I had a nap. Naps are magic.

So, we're in for a ride, illness and me, but one day it will be forced to give up and go away. Until then I will commune with my non allergenic comforter and my orange juice. Good night.