Michael McGirr - The Lost Art of Sleep

Michael McGirr is the author of Things You Get For Free and Bypass: The story of a road. He is a school teacher and lives near a port with his wife, Jenny, and their three children.

Also by Michael McGirr

Things You Get For Free
Bypass

MICHAEL
McGIRR

This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.

First published 2009 in Picador by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Limited
1 Market Street, Sydney

Copyright Michael McGirr 2009

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

McGirr, Michael, 1961

The lost art of sleep / Michael McGirr.

9780330424912 (pbk.)

Sleep
Relaxation.

154.6

Typeset in 12/18.5 pt Electra LH by Midland Typesetters, Australia
Printed in Australia by McPhersons Printing Group

Papers used by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd are natural, recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable forests. The manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

These electronic editions published in 2009 by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd
1 Market Street, Sydney 2000

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

All rights reserved. This publication (or any part of it) may not be reproduced or transmitted, copied, stored, distributed or otherwise made available by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical) or by any means (photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.

The Lost Art of Sleep

Michael McGirr

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For Benedict, Jacob and Clare
And for Tony Flynn

O Lord, lay me down like a stone
and raise me up like new bread
Platon Karatayev in Tolstoys War and Peace

I only know that while I sleep I have no fear, nor hope, nor
trouble, nor glory. Bless the inventor of sleep.
Sancho in Cervantes Don Quixote

I wish I could write a chapter upon sleep... and yet,
as fine as it is, I would undertake to write a dozen chapters
upon button-holes, both quicker and with more fame,
than a single chapter upon this.
Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy

F atigue fatigue is when youre tired of being tired. Jenny and I have it bad. We promise each other an early night because the kids are in bed and its been another long day and there are no more phone calls to make. But first there just might be something on television. At 9 pm, we find the remote where it has ended up with the dirty plates beside the sink and put the TV on. Its like sticking something in your arm. An hour later we are still there, too weary to make the effort to go to bed, too tired to sleep, unable to do anything more with the day but unwilling to let it go. Theres a glass from dinner resting beside the screen where the remote usually sleeps. We are hungry for conversation but tiredness has robbed us of any appetite for it.

A few months after our Benedict, or Benny, was born, I was standing on a chair trying to change a stubborn light bulb when an old friend called in to see us. When it comes to dead light bulbs, I dont mind change. In the case of dirty nappies, I had recently discovered a more conservative streak.

Our visitor was one of many who dropped into our lives from the main road between Sydney to Melbourne that ran day and night not far from the small town in which we had a small house. In fact, the Hume Highway used to be the main street of Gunning. It was still part of our lives, both for those it brought and those it took away. Today, it was bringing. Our friend had with her a number of beautiful baby things which she had knitted herself, including a bonnet and mittens, the kind of things that make baby photos look identical to those of a childs grandparents. She told us that she was part of a knitting group which met every week and shared ideas.

She held Benny until he went to sleep and then started telling us about her daughter.

I am so anxious about my daughter, she said.

We took Benny to his cot. When we were ready for adult talk again, our visitor took up the thread.

I cant sleep at night worrying about my daughter, she resumed.

We had a cup of tea as we listened to her worries about the daughter and the additional worry of not being able to sleep because of those worries. By the time she got up to leave, it had already slipped past nine oclock.

Ill tell you one thing, she said as she struggled to find her car keys. I toss and turn in bed thinking about my daughter.

We watched her worried tail-lights fade into the bottom of the street.

Our friend was eighty-two and her daughter was sixty-one.

After she left, we listened to Benny, already starting to stir in his room.

We didnt say anything for a while.

You know, said Jenny, this is quite a long-term situation we have here.

I n the end, it only took one man to change the light bulb.

Thomas Alva Edison patented over a thousand bright ideas in his lifetime although his name is remembered for maybe half a dozen of them, household items which changed the way people use their little planet. The first was an electric gadget for recording votes in an election, registered in 1869 when Edison was twenty-two. By that stage, his personality was already lit. Edison could never sit still, a difficulty which contributed to his paltry formal education. These days we might be tempted to think of him as a case of Attention Deficit Disorder, although Edisons mother taught him to read and, all his life, he devoured books compulsively. He did everything compulsively. However early his day may have begun, by 9.15 at night it was still just beginning.

A number of Edisons inventions were attempts to play tricks on Old Father Time, to cheat him of his due. By the age of fifteen, Edison had left his home in Port Huron, Michigan, across the lake from where he was born in Ohio, and had moved from selling newspapers to operating a more recent device known as the telegraph. The telegraph had at last solved the problem which had cost the runner his life after the battle of Marathon: no longer did messages need to be delivered in person.