midsummer

The Quarrel of Oberon and Titania (1849) by Sir Joseph Noel Paton, 

My sleep schedule has been strange but still like clockwork. At around 2 am, some of the birds begin to chirp outside, completely convinced it must be dawn. I am up usually to see the first cracks of daylight spreading from the direction of the lake, though usually unconscious by sun-up. It reminds me of my summers in college where I quite regularly was heading to bed just as my mother was getting up to go to work at 6. I usually wrap up the creative tasks I begin after dinner around midnight, so spend those last few hours of the day watching streaming or scrolling Instagram from either my bed or the sofa. It's as close, I suppose as I get to daily leisure time since I am usually waking up at 10am, and after some tidying and a workout, getting to work immediately on writing or editing things, which I'll wrap up around 5 or 6. 

Becuase I am up later and getting up earlier this summer due to the ample sunlight, I find I hit a slump around 6 pm, and need to grab those couple hours of sleep as I can, usually on a bed surrounded by lazy cats who have no doubt been snoozing there all day. If I have a lot to do, I will down a couple iced lattes and persevere, but more often, I give in to my drowsiness wholeheartedly at least for an hour or so, which almost gives me another fresh start to the evening--making dinner, running things out to mailboxes and dumpsters, digging in on my own projects. Sometimes, J will come over late, having lingered at the acting studio til after midnight, both us luckily with the same sleep schedule and up around the same time. We will (try to anyway) watch or movie or make strange cocktail experiments and get high and will usually be asleep by dawn. 

Last night we were awake late and I was up as soon as he was, so after a rigorous day writing one big article on botanical painting and two little ones on decor,  plus a short blog for here, I was late in my nap, but decided to take it nonetheless. Somehow, I managed to sleep through into actual darkness, which came the latest it will for an entire whole year. It made me sad like I'd missed something, but I was an unusual kind of drowsy and a little chilled from the open windows, which made me think of fairy rings and the inherent dangers of falling asleep in the forest. The idea that dozing off in the wrong place on a sunny afternoon could mean you'd be lost forever. Summer will obviously stretch on, and the nights will still be long til September, but creeping up slowly into afternoon until suddenly it's noticeable. I love fall, but winter is forever and I feel like I barely survived the last one, so I am not looking forward to yet another. It's also sad to me that many define summer's beginning today, which somehow feels more like an end before its actually started (especially this year with the coolness, though with no A/C, I am not really complaining.)

Of course, which is how I find myself making pasta now at 1am, making collages, and writing this entry. I will no doubt will be awake to see another dawn since I napped for a languorous 3 hours tonight. Also thanking my lucky stars for being able to make my own schedules and routines after two decades of working within everyone else's. I find that the hours between 10 and 1 am are often my most productive and creative, which no doubt may be a little fairy magic all on its own.