Insomnia

Inside my sleepless mind


I went to bed at 3 am but I was not sleepy at all. For a miracle I slept till 5:30, when Claudio’s alarm clock went off warning he needed to leave for location. I helped him out with things he did not ask, and he left. I don’t like when he doesn’t smile. I whish he could smile 24-7, but he says not everything in life is my “pink world”. I simply can’t pretend I don’t see it, so I made him a papaya shake – which is almost pink – hugged him tight, hung on his neck, “pinkly-kissed” his papaya lips as if it would change the color of his smile.

I went back to bed thinking I would sleep till 9. Morning was still night, so it was fresh. A nice wind was coming from the window, the fan on the ceiling, the cold bed sheets…my 350 pilows doing the perfect surrounding so that any move would be an invite for dreams…and I’m awake.

The clock on the wall screams every two seconds trying to convince me I should close my eyes, but my brain cannot stop: a retrospective of the last few months, a visit to the next few years, a try to understand my actions and my feelings. I hear my mother’s voice pronouncing her favorite words: “analise this…analise this…”

I go far and away while the clock tryes to hold the seconds like Hiro Nakamura; I do the math: how many years, how many months, how many days, how many bills, how much is fair, how much, how many, how many, how much…I remember people and things. My brain is freaking out as if I knew how it feels to be stoned; it seems like an airport board changing flight numbers and city names -- in my case, changing people’s names, pending issues and desires on hold.

Between a tic and a tac, sweet Chris Isaak comes and sings to me.

- Hey you, what you’re doing inside my head?

- You called me.

- It was just a thought; it’s this song stuck in my head.

- Only the song?

- A song is never alone.

Behave - he says the way he ever does, and then leaves forgetting to take the song with him.

Having Chris’ voice in the background, some other people come to visit me. Not all of them were invited, not all of them are welcome. Some of them just come in and say one single word; others smile to remind me I left something behind. I did leave a lot behind; I just want to know where I left myself tonight.
In nights like these, life comes and catches me! Plus, there are all these lines – mine and from others – hammering on my head in a complete nonsense disorder.

They are not your experiences, they are stories I wrote thinking of you
There's no substitute for enthusiasm, no substitute, no substitute? Dammit.
I wish I had Mark Zupan's strength
Imagination! Is it really more important than knowledge? I'd rather be wiser, Mr. Einstein...my imagination kills me sometimes
Evolution is an imperfect and often violent process
I'm tangled in my blanket of clouds, dreaming aloud
Read my soul, not my words!
My name is Dito Montiel and I'm going to leave everyone in this film
Passing hearts, passing hearts...so sad
I don't know how to play this game of yours
In the heart, not in this land or that. Lasting victories are won IN THE HEART
I don't miss those days. I miss you!
Send God, don't send Jesus...Iraq is no place for children
I miss romance. Why do I need it that much? Is that wrong?
Shut up Mercedes, you gotta sleep!

Just esquizofrenic like this…my brain thinks in two different languages all the time and some thoughts won’t happen in Portuguese. Someone asked me once to drop the “anglicisms”, but that would be self-mutilation.

I knew I HAD to speak English since I was a little girl, and then something almost supernatural happened and made me learn. Weird things happen to me…I’ve learned English from my dreams – either asleep or awake. No English classes, nada. Funny this way… From those days on, my brain cannot distinguish one language from the other, only one feeling from the other. Portuguese is for what is pratical, and English for what comes from the heart.

“I love you” is deeper than “eu te amo”, “amazing” is way overwhelming while “incrível” is just a bit increadible. “The man of my dreams” is someone “o homem da minha vida” would never be.

Then I’ve met people who sound like poetry just for being alive, and I found out that some of them couldn’t speak Portuguese. Thus my weird super-powered brain made possible to me to be close to them. See? It’s good to be a bit crazy. See? I’m explaining things to myself at 7 a.m. and I haven’t slept yet.
But I need to sleep, so that November finally arrives. October brought the change I was never prepared to: the sudden ending of the sweet dream that used to heal my heart. The emptiness of this loss relieves me a little bit, I confess, but at the same time it weights like an empty soul.

Maybe November brings me some flowers…

“Yeah, it’s empty out there”, says another voice while I hide my head underneath the pillows.

- Sing to me, Christopher.