in the wee small hours

...of the morning, when the whole wide world is fast asleep...
There are plenty of thoughts that keep me awake this late, and I long for the day when sewing geniuses finally invent a whisper-soft machine that allows me to sew until dawn without disturbing anyone. Unfortunately, my house is small, and my terrific new Baby Lock isn't 100% soundless.
So, after a fruitless hour in bed between 12:30 and quarter-to-two, I'm up. Ate a brownie, read the Strib online, noted without surprise that no one I know emails at this time of the night. I feel tired, but got caught up instead with thinking about the job -- if I devoted as much attention to the logistical details as I do to parsing the relationships among my co-workers, I'd really be on top of the place.
But it's the relationships that get my wheels spinning. Part of my thing is that I'm dogged by the usual frailties -- pride, insecurity, jealousy, ego -- and I know when I'm letting one of these failings determine my overall approach to a person or problem. Midnight is when the "practice dialogues" tend to start -- conversations with friends and coworkers, exchanges that would probably never take place in real time, imaginary give and take that allows me to put my feelings into words. It's a weird habit, one I also indulge when I'm out walking to and from bus stops and the like -- these dialogues help me imagine an issue from someone else's point of view, help me anticipate a reaction to a question or complaint, and allow me some time for mental detective work as well. I get to expose my personality flaws without actually embarrassing the hell out of myself by imagining confrontations over petty concerns and office rivalry. I need to process this stuff, to live it out in some sense, in order to get past it. Or to at least achieve sufficient perspective that a conversation about some problem won't devolve into lots of whining or groveling. Sometimes it sucks to be so self-sufficient -- it's more fun to spontaneously emote all over someone, isn't it? But the church is a lousy place to act self-centered.

Plus, as I mentioned, this time of night is great for knotting loose ends into skeins of activity and patterns of behavior -- it's fun to speculate about what people don't tell me. In my imagination, I'm the fly on the wall in every room; I'm reading other people's mail and prying into their motivations. Sound creepy? I mean no harm. I'm just keen to know what's really on everybody's mind, all the time. I'm interested in what they'll do next.

It's windy -- the bamboo chimes over the back steps swing and activate the motion-sensor light that floods the backyard. In the grass, our swivelers swivel and our spinners spin, catching the light and reflecting it back at the blind windows. Somewhere out there, rabbits and raccoons and varmints of all kinds are skulking and slinking or furtively nibbling. Bars are closed. Intersections are deserted. Criminals and taggers and homeless people share the night, feeling and smelling the winter coming on, considering their options if they have any. I used to go bike riding in the middle of the night, during the warm months, when I was in school. If I couldn't sleep. Dress up as a man and ride around town, avoiding groups on foot, staying out of the way of the guns. Just to be free and anonymous and invisible.