Awake in the darkness.

Thinking. Writing with eyes shut.

Quiet. Still. Maybe it will pass if I stop thinking.

No. Every waking thought propels me higher out of sleep. I am no longer hovering over my barely conscious dreams. I am awake.

I check the time. Just past 4 a.m.

“It’s four in the morning
I can’t sleep and it feels like a warning
Oh oh….”

Thank you, Switchfoot for the soundtrack of my life. It is the second week we have been back in Sweden and I still can not get the night sleep right. Is it jet lag? Is it taking melatonin at night and being too tired during the day to stay awake, power napping and waking up at night after too few hours?

Is it that I feel suspended between directions again, not working on a big goal, restless? At night my mind wakes up. The tyranny of choice. What to do? What should be a blessing feels like a curse. Freedom. Responsibility. Opportunity slipping away.

I am naturally a morning person, so when I wake up at night I think it is especially difficult to get back to sleep. All my intellectual energy pours into problem solving mode. Sometimes the unabashed, illogical dream consciousness holds on just long enough to make thoughts creative. I see in color. I solve in color.

If I did not think it would hurt my family/social life, I could just wake up every morning at 4 a.m. for a private writing session, followed by a long midday nap. Maybe that is what winter should look like in Sweden, for me.

This morning after I got up I walked out into the living room, stretched and watched the blowing snow in the suspended street lights. In a city that stays dark for so many hours in January, the street lighting systems are evidence of Sweden’s strong, stable government. Miles of public lights illuminate the streets and sidewalks, bike paths and even parks. Its easy and relatively safe to get around after dark. But sometimes it’s hard to sleep with the light pressing into the apartment, especially at 4 in the morning.

Snow and light and I really need to learn how to use my camera better

I can hear the wind and I am glad I don’t have to go anywhere this morning. The snow seems to turn to rain before it hits the pavement below. There is no picturesque accumulation of snow, just driving, wet precipitation. Snow and rain and ice and wind.

We were told it would be this way, but this is the first week it has been cold enough to experience it. You have to leave Malmö to see snow in winter. It just does not get cold enough here with the marine layer to support snow. It is winter without snow, like Narnia without Christmas.

What should I do with it?