Harvest Moontime

Harvest moon. Cramps. Can’t sleep.

That about sums it up. It’s six in the morning, the moon is huge and orange, and I’m crouching in the front seat of the van watching Bro sleep on the bed. I take Ginger and Cranberry Bark tinctures for my owie tummy, and it helps but I’m still wide awake. It has to do with hormones and wheat I think, even though I haven’t had any in months.

I like the way the van moves in the wind, rocking helter skelter, and the waves crash big against the rocks in front of the van. I can feel my left ovary twitching and it seems so dramatic, the wind and water and guts of it all. Suddenly it scares me and I think the wind and waves could pull all my guts and breath from me, right down and out my vagina and I’d be dead.

I drive, slowly so Bro doesn’t get jostled on the bumps, to my other parking spot, right near the public bathrooms and a little less windy. I crouch there in the front seat of the van and watch the moon go down. It goes so quickly behind the mountains and I cry.

A seagull lands on the roof. Bro doesn’t wake up. Once, when I was sixteen and the night auditor at a hotel, there was a homeless drunk man with a guitar who would come in and try to play for tips in the bar. Sometimes it was all good, but other times the people would want to listen to the jukebox and I would coax him out into the lobby to prevent a fight. He woud always play Forever Young for me, and he would always cry for my lost childhood, whatever he imagined it to be. Then he would tell me about Vietnam, and I would listen, and he would tell me that I was very sweet and would make somebody a good wife someday.

A police car pulls into the parking lot and cuts it’s lights. Fuck. There’s no problem with parking here, lots of people are doing it, but I have a feeling that if they knew I was sleeping here they’d prefer I go up the road and pay at the campground. I scurry into the back of the van and pull the covers up over my head. I’m topless and sea kissed and I know if I have to grab a shirt and talk to a cop I will not be able to stop laughing.

In bed I lay still and pay attention to my breathing and my spine. I think when I tuck my tailbone under a tiny bit it helps the cramps. After a while I hear the cop pull away. I still can’t sleep. There are herbs I could take for that, but there is always the possibility that I’d have to drive, so I don’t. I climb down into the front seat and take more cranberry bark. It helps so quickly, but sometimes it doesn’t last very long. The moon is gone and so is all my seriousness, so I pull out the laptop and check my email (there is wifi everywhere! It’s, like, wifi heaven!). There are way too many emails, so I ignore them and check my comments and my favorite forums. I look at the emails again and there are still a lot, so I delete some and go back to bed.

I’m reading a book about Qigong. Most of the first part of the book is about relaxation. Reading about relaxation is very relaxing, so I’ve fallen asleep a lot and haven’t made much progress through the book. Now I’ve gotten through the physics and necessity of relaxation, and I’m reading about relaxation techniques and visualizations. First become aware of the muscles at the crown of your head, and relax them, the book says. I try not to do it, but of course I do, and by the time I get to my feet I’m feeling a little sleepy.

Soon I’m dreaming about relaxation and when I used to do erotic hypnosis. That’s right, my dream self says to myself, just follow the energy down that meridian and let it release. Yes, my other dream self says, topless and sea kissed, watch my big, beautiful, heavy breasts. They’re so big, so heavy, and they are pulling you down into a deep, deep sleep. And then feel the energy comes up your calves, through your thighs, and up the governing vessel, feel it moving up you like sleep and deep relaxation and the perfect spacing of vertebra.