When I set out to learn about my mother's bridge club, the Jewish octogenarians behind the matching outfits and accessories, I never expected to fall in love with them. This is the story of the ladies, their game, their gen, and the ragged path that led me back to my mother.
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A doctor asked me what keeps me up and I said, me. I keep me up. I do email and tiktok and instagram and facebook. Before that I watched late night TV. And movies in black and white. And before that I made wild passionate love all night. And before that I wrote in my diary, pages and pages about being lonely in one form or another. Poetry & before that I braided my hair. I bought a green jacket with blue piping with a silk lining and tiny daisies. And before that I cried in my crib. Inconsolable. Same difference.
What keeps you up at night?
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Betsy Lerner 
“What keeps you up at night?”
Nothing, any more. Used to be, any number of things. Let’s see…
Insomnia. Plain and simple biological inability to cast off on the voyage to The Land of Nod. So I would read. Write. Sailing on the SS Doomscroll through the world’s Dire Straits, a virtual tourist (not hard to do these days).
Earlier times, other times, other things. Work that had to be done. Finishing packing before traveling or moving house. Finishing prepping exhibits before tomorrow’s deposition or court hearing. Cramming for tomorrow’s exam. Putting the final touches on a research paper. Lobbing just one more manuscript over some transom somewhere.
Sometimes, pleasant things, or things taken to be pleasant. Staying at the party as late as possible, just one more toke, just one more drink, just More Life! please, just More Life! Making love, and making love again, talking in the dark, Stay with me, baby, stay with me.
Those months when it was time, the thing to do, tending to the real baby, cries in the night, changing diapers, feeding, burping, rocking back to sleep, God, I was so tired.
But these days, what keeps me up at night? Nothing. Old man’s bladder gets me up at night, but that’s a matter soon taken care of, then it’s back to bed. But nothing keeps me up. It is banished, exiled, cast out, that thing that used to keep me up, manifesting itself in various ways. Since my stroke, which was a scant four months ago, I am in bed every night around 9:00 p.m., and asleep shortly thereafter. The one thing that I wanted, more than anything else, when I lay in my hospital bed, was a deep and sound sleep. A healthful, restorative, sufficiently rejuvenating sleep. Nowadays I don’t scant myself the sleep, having learned how necessary it is in good and proper measure.
I see the end now. Of course, we can all see it, one way or another, if we but look. We don’t, usually, or not for long. Such is our way. And I’m not, these days, morosely contemplating my own demise. But I see it more clearly now, than ever before, and I know there are still things I’d like to do before I go, if I can, if I may. But I’m not losing sleep over it.
It’s bitch Tet when the finish line is closer than the start. I get it. Been there, doing that. They say the last bite is best. Not ready to find out just yet. Snooze baby snooze. Makes tomorrow more grand.
Noisy neighbours doing all the things you did. Thankfully god took took them out.
From my POV, sleep is entirely over-rated. Between Day Job tasks, editing the latest manuscript, bottling the last of the Autumn honey harvest and assembling a quilt, I’m wringing out the minutes of each evening until at least midnight. Insomnia, for me, is mostly an urban myth (and I am grateful).
Thinking…about everything and everyone…bills, possible illness, publishing my work, not publishing my work…everything