I sleep with my eyes covered.
Sleep has always been important to me. I hate being interrupted (I work hard to be magnanimous with the dogs when they are disturbed at night, and to take my turn in getting out of bed and settling them down again). The early morning light lands as a painful interruption.
A few weeks ago we were on holiday. I had forgotten to pack my eye mask and when I realised a slow, quiet panic began to unfold at the back of my mind.
It was easy enough to buy a replacement eye-mask at Tuffins’ supermarket in Craven Arms. That shop has everything, from gourmet frozen meals to wellington boots. The elastic on the new mask was too tight (I have a big head), but I was happy to suffer the uncomfortable feeling of my skull being compressed if it meant not being woken by the sunrise.
Have I always been sensitive to the light? My parents installed blackout blinds on my East facing bedroom window to block out the early morning sun. A well slept-child makes a parent’s life easier.
Once, when I was a teenager, I panicked in a clothes shop. It was inside the mall, at the Merry Hill Shopping Centre. The shop had white walls, and was very brightly lit. In my memory the whole thing is shining and glowing. I always thought that it was the pressure of choosing something ‘right’, and the anxiety of having a social interaction with a shop assistant that led to me finding myself back outside the shop, unable to go back in. Looking back on it now, I don’t think the glowing walls helped.
Mid-summer has just passed. Year after year I tell myself I should wake up and greet the sunrise. Year after year I make sure that the blinds are down, the curtains are drawn and my eye mask is firmly in place before going to bed on mid-summer’s eve.
I love Wild Therapy, Eco Dharma, Earth based spirituality and knowing myself as a human animal. I should get up and greet the solstice sun-rise. It would tune me into the season, invite reflection on my place in the world and just be a generally meaningful thing to do.
I should be that sort of person.
The weight of being that sort of person begins to be a burden. Brooke McAlary wrote beautifully about this yesterday.
After our Buddhist practice on Wednesday evening most of our group walked up to the top of the Malvern Hills to watch the solstice sun set. I didn’t go. I had sat for too long in the heatwave hot sun earlier in the day and was feeling ill. The climate crisis means these heatwaves with record breaking temperatures are more likely year on year, and I am a fair skinned, red-headed Celt that easily wilts.
This year I tried letting go of being the kind of person that celebrates the solstice in any particular way. I felt less guilty than usual when I pulled my eye mask on tightly on midsummers eve and I didn’t judge myself for missing the sunset on Wednesday.
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Yesterday - the very slightly longer than solstice day - I woke up as the sun was rising, desperately needing a wee. As I walked to the bathroom I narrowed my eyes at the too bright light coming in around the edges of the kitchen blinds, and through the not fully drawn living room curtains. “This is me greeting the new season,” I thought. “Hello morning sun.” After the wee I went straight back to bed.
My solstice celebration has not been about being this sort of person, or that sort of person. It has not been about doing what is good to do. Instead I have just been noticing what is like to be this particular human, in this particular time and in this particular place.
I loved this!
I love sun ... but like you said, not too much of it. When we have endless days of sun here (which doesn't happen a lot), I long for a runny day. I wouldn't do well in California or the southwest. I'm also fair-skinned, with SLE (needs to avoid sun) of Scottish-Irish-Wales-English origin and wilt easily.
I don't mind early sunrise because I'm an early-to-bed person, so going to bed when it's still light out is a thing for me. Plus, I am a "2-sleep" person (a few hours early, followed by middle-of-the-night wakefulness, then a bit more sleep) I used to feel weird about that. I let it go. I realized I needed to sleep when it happens naturally.
I didn't do shit about the solstice, either. So there's that. 😄