Each Day Already is a Challenge

To sleep! perchance to dream

Know where that is found? That's right. It's from Shakespeare's soliloquy which begins "To be or not to be." I was just reading and reviewing that whole soliloquy. It was either in 10th or 11th grade that we studied Hamlet in school. We had to memorize many parts of Hamlet, and this was one of those parts.

I think it must have been 11th grade. I would have memorized this in English class. At the same time, I was memorizing all of the words to songs for concerts we would perform with the choir and the story of the "Crow and the Fox" in French class. On my own, I vowed to memorize some Bible verses that year as well.

Oddly enough, I remember some of the Bible verses. And I remember most of the French I memorized that year. In fact, I have been known to recite that French in my sleep.

I just love the Internet. I Googled the first line of what I memoried in French class and voi la. There it was. The entire text of what I had memorized in 11th grade. It's by Jean de la Fontaine.

Maître Corbeau, sur un arbre perché,
Tenait en son bec un fromage.
Maître Renard, par l'odeur alléché,
Lui tint à peu près ce langage :
"Hé ! bonjour, Monsieur du Corbeau.
Que vous êtes joli ! que vous me semblez beau !
Sans mentir, si votre ramage
Se rapporte à votre plumage,
Vous êtes le Phénix des hôtes de ces bois."
A ces mots le Corbeau ne se sent pas de joie ;
Et pour montrer sa belle voix,
Il ouvre un large bec, laisse tomber sa proie.
Le Renard s'en saisit, et dit : "Mon bon Monsieur,
Apprenez que tout flatteur
Vit aux dépens de celui qui l'écoute :
Cette leçon vaut bien un fromage, sans doute. "
Le Corbeau, honteux et confus,
Jura, mais un peu tard, qu'on ne l'y prendrait plus.

If you want the English translation, here's the link. http://www.jdlf.com/lesfables/livrei/lecorbeauetlerenard

It's funny how easily it is to get distracted. I was determined to write about sleep today.

I found some sleeping (and waking) quotes:

It is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked on it. ~John Steinbeck

One of the coolest and wisest hours a man has, is just after he awakes in the morning.
- Herman Melville

He who sleeps in continual noise is wakened by silence. - William Dean Howells

Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop. - Ovid

Why am I thinking about sleep? Because for some reason, when I don't have to pick up Derek at work at 6:45 a.m., I wake up bewteen 6:50 and 7:10 a.m. It's not that I wake up thinking that I missed getting Derek from work. I always know that it's a day when I don't have to do that. It's not that the cats have awakened me. Often one or both of them are sleeping soundly on the bed with me.

Earlier in the year, it could have been the sun waking me. But not now. The sun rises before I'm waking.

Back when Derek and I lived in Lake Jackson, TX, I used to wake up at 4:30 a.m. each and every day. It didn't matter if I went to bed at 10 p.m. or 1 a.m., I would always wake at the same time. I know why that was. In the apartment behind me, there was a fellow who went to work every morning at that time. The parking lot where he parked was just 20 feet or so from my bedroom window and his car was LOUD. I woke every time he started his car and I usually couldn't get back to sleep. Oh well. I loved watching the sun come up.

Now I'm trying to discover if there's a loud car or truck in my neighborhood waking me each morning. If it's a noise that wakes me, it stops before I'm out of bed. I just can't figure it out.

As I was thinking about sleep patterns, I thought about hubby. He loves sleeping in until at least 9 a.m. on the days when he doesn't work. I have to admit that bugs me a bit. I always got up even earlier on days I didn't work so that all of my house chores could be completed by about 10 a.m. and the rest of the day could be used for having fun.

With hubby in bed until 9, I feel like I have to tip-toe around. He's not a sound sleeper. Perhaps that's what bugs me more. I could get up on the weekends and clean and do laundry or whatever, but I'm afraid of waking him. And so I don't do those things.

And then I don't do them when he's up either. I really prefer cleaning when there's no one to get in the way. It goes faster that way.

Oh well.

I was also thinking about today's kids...and when they have sleep overs. When I was young, we had sleep overs too. But no matter how long we were awake, we were always expected to leave the house where we slept by about 8 a.m. We had to be up, washed, dressed and with breakfast in our bellies before then. We left by 8, so that all of us could be home and ready to do our chores.

Back then, on the weekends, dads mowed the lawns early in the morning hours too. On any Saturday in the summer, you could see the dads in every yard between 7 and 9 a.m. If someone wasn't cutting the grass by then, we all wondered if the man of the house was sick. Of if the family had gone away for the day.

While the dads were doing yard chores, the kids were either helping out there or in the house with the moms. The moms were fussing in the kitchen, picking up around the house or doing a load of laundry. Yes, there were specific days for big housekeeping chores and laundry, but Saturday mornings were catch-up days.

On Saturday nights, dads shined our shoes - our church shoes and our school shoes. I think my dad liked that his girls wore patent leather shoes to church. He just put a layer of vasoline on them and wiped them clean. Real leather shoes required shoe polish and spit-shining. In the summer, of course, the dads didn't have to polish school shoes. Instead, they checked out the tennis shoes and sandles to make sure they were clean for the coming week. White tennis shoes did get white shoe polish on them sometimes. I know my dad preferred that we get red or navy Keds.

While dads were polishing shoes, moms were making sure that the kids were ready for
church in the morning. They washed our hair (back then we often only washed our hair once a week - yuck!). I had rather straight hair, so my mom put curlers in my hair every Saturday evening. Every picture of me as a kid on a Saturday night shows me with curlers, even if we're having a family get-together for a birthday or something.

Sunday mornings, of course, found everyone heading to their church. We kids could visit and play with friends after church and after lunch. If we weren't going to visit other relatives, that is. We often visited aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents on Sunday afternoons.

When we moved into the neighborhood where I spent my elementary school years, I was only three years old. It was still part farming community, and there were horses, cows, goats and chickens all around us. I wonder if we all got up early in the morning because there were roosters to help wake us.

Whatever the reason, rising early was something that has become a habit for me. Even when I don't have to. Or perhaps especially when I don't have to. I love waking to watch the sun rise and hear the birds being their morning praise and worship service. I love watching squirrels romp. You just don't hear or see these things later in the day. By then, the animals are about their business.

Sometimes, we should pay attention to what the animals and birds have to teach us.

So maybe that's the answer to the puzzle. Maybe I wake up around 7 a.m. just because it's what my body and mind and spirit are used to doing. Getting up early to face the day.