Sounds of the Night

from Jacqueline

Also in this post: A must-read book recommendation and a question to our readers, from your Naked Authors. So, read on ....

I’m one of those people for whom the prescribed eight-hours-without-waking sleep pattern lingers somewhere beyond my grasp. I’ve been like this since I was a child, and even in that prime sleep period – teenagerhood – I was always up and about early, taking long walks across dew-laden fields with the morning mist just rising. Sometimes I’m awakened by my dreams – I can remember dreams I had when I was five – and sometimes, when in the midst of writing a book, I am drawn from sleep by my characters, who seem to be lining up like actors on a stage, ready to present me with another scene, a new idea, a plot twist I hadn’t thought of before. Then there are the times when sleep eludes me for hours, so I lay there and listen to the sounds of the night.



I am enchanted by the sound of coyotes singing at night, that yip-yipping howl in the mountains that sends shivers down my spine, with each note pitched high enough to reach the moon. We lived in an equally rural area when I was a child, growing up in England, and though I couldn’t ever begin to imagine that I would one day live in a place where coyotes roam, I knew what it was to wake with a start at the impassioned screech of a vixen, a sound that seemed to have been manufactured by Hitchcock himself. People have run from their houses at that scream, or called the police, thinking a woman was being murdered.

When my brother and I were children, my mother used to tell us her stories of London in the Blitz, of her family being bombed out of their home on more than one occasion, and having to seek refuge in a church, or a school. She described the air-raid warnings that shattered any semblance of calm, and the rumble of airplane engines as the bombers closed in. And because I didn’t know where my mother’s story ended and mine began, sometimes, at night, I would hear a ‘plane in the distance – not a jet, but a propeller-driven old boneshaker on its way to land at the airfield some ten miles away – and I would believe that they were coming for us again, those Luftwaffe ‘planes, so I would delve deep beneath the covers, or seek refuge under my bed, just in case a bomb dropped on our house.



I was twenty-one when I first went to New York. That first night in the city, I gave up trying to catch a few z’s and eventually left my bed and sat by the window of my hotel room, to watch the taxis and police cars, the club-goers and small-hour wanderers, the source of a cacophony that severed all chance of sleep. Soon after, in this same continent, I was filled with excitement when I heard the droning whistle of a Canadian Pacific train in the midnight distance, making its way across the prairie. I’ve remained awake long enough on a hot, oppressive night to hear the muezzin calling the faithful to prayer in the Middle East, and been soothed back to sleep by the sound of water slapping against the side of a yacht. And again on a yacht, moored on the River Thames, I’ve been kept awake by fog horns sounding up and down the river. When I lived in Sausalito, I heard fog horns again, blasting right down through the San Francisco Bay, the gradation of sound indicating the reach of each horn.



It was about a year ago that I was jarred into wakefulness by an ear-shattering boom as the space shuttle entered the earth’s atmosphere, and last week by the never-ending two-tone sirens of police and ambulance racing to the other end of our small town. I stayed awake praying for those who lived at their final destination.

Last night, as I listened to the coyotes singing, I thought about the sounds that people were hearing all over the world. The relentless rain in flood-stricken areas, or in Darfur, in a camp, the muffled sound of women leaving in search of food, hoping to return without meeting rape or death on the road. I thought about my parents, over six thousand miles away, and my friends who live on a Canadian island, where recent gales have brought even more snow overnight, with a sound like soft brushes on a drum as flakes thrashed against the window panes. I wondered what it must be like to be in Iraq, and if sleep ever comes, to anyone. And I thought of the one sound I miss most from England, the dawn chorus that starts oh-so-early in the morning. I always knew, when I was a child, that if I couldn’t get back to sleep by about four o’clock, when the first song thrush gave voice, then there would be precious little chance of rest until the following night.



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A Book Recommendation:

As some of you know, I often take classes at UCLA Extension, and have really enjoyed being part of a group of writers who come back time and time again to the same instructor, Barbara Abercrombie. Now one of our number has published her memoir, which is not only getting great reviews, but was recommended in Newsweek’s “The List” this week. So, go out and buy Monica Holloway’s, “Driving With Dead People.” You’ve heard this comment about books before, but she will make you laugh out loud, and she will make you weep. Personally, I can’t remember a time in class that she didn’t have me in stitches, though I was also among the weepers.



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A Question To Our Readers:

We’ve been doing some navel-gazing, here at nakedauthors.com. We’ve looked at our blog, and we’ve decided that a whole lot more people would be much happier if they read our posts. Yes, we’ve many readers out there, but in true democratic fashion, we want to spread the joy, our news, our opinions. Why, we’ve asked ourselves, should the rest of the world avoid coming close to bursting a blood vessel every time Paul takes aim where aim needs to be taken, or when Cornelia has us giggling in the aisles, or thinking about something we’ve never thought about before? We’ve decided that Patty must be introduced to a wider global audience, great writer that she is, and we know that Jim should be flashing that badge in more online neighborhoods (Paul, I can hear a quip coming – no, not those sort of online neighborhoods!). So, all of you , especially you who read nakedauthors.com and never comment, this is the time to step up to the plate – we want to know what you really like about our blog. What do YOU think makes us different? What brings you back time and time again to read what we have to say? Come on, tell us what you like. The key, our esteemed readers, is what makes you click on nakedauthors.com? Come on, share. (I live in California, that’s what we do here, we “share” our feelings). You don’t have to tell us who you are, we just want to know why you like us.



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