Where the hell have I been?

Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care, the death of each day's life, sore labour's bath, balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course, chief nourisher in life's feast.

My raveled sleeve of care has yet to be mended.

William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act II, sc. 2

I’ve flown to distant continents, traversed the Andes and the Amazon; mostly, I’ve trudged upstairs and hauled my weary butt to bed. I’ve sought comfort under comforters and in the furry purr of cats.

When I’m not unconscious, I’m glued to the news, wishing the torturers of children would die horrid deaths. I’m grieving babies wailing in sweltering “shelters,” whimpering in their freezing concrete sleep. I’m mourning scorched kangaroos and koalas. I’m sad for lost, lonely Britain. I’m weeping over rising waters; all decency’s been washed to sea.

I’m buoyed by Steven Colbert’s magnanimity, soothed by the sound of his voice. He lulls me to drift off, only to dream of Pulse, of El Paso. I hear bullets whizzing past Parkland students, blasting open the unlucky ones’ chests. That freak on Fifth Avenue. I hear the sickening sound of his braying hate. In fitful sleep I sense the banality of America’s bullets. Just pull up the covers. Take cover from tragedy.

I have never felt such compassion; I have never felt such rage. I sleep too much, yet I cannot rest. I’d say it’s human hibernation, but winters have turned balmy. I’ve been gone springs, summers, autumns as well. Who can tell? Like faith, seasonal distinctions are disintegrating, melting away before our collective blind eyes.

To those in the “I’ll sleep when I’m dead” camp, please don’t judge me too harshly. Arrogance. Ignorance. Corruption and cruelty. Stupefying selfishness. Sadism. Why wouldn’t I seek slumber’s oblivion? I took to bed some years ago, and now it’s “1984.”