Long Walks On Leafy Streets

9/10/2015 Beach Drive, Rock Creek Park, Washington, DC
Sleep has become the most precious commodity these days. I have never in my life had to deal with lack of sleep the way I am doing now. Even when I was in high school preparing for college, arguably the time when I was working the hardest, I got good amounts of sleep by working hard during the day. On Saturday night (8/29) for example, I slept about a couple of hours after midnight before waking up to Prashant’s crying. He was too cranky and she was getting too sleepy so I took care of him until 6 am. He seemed to be having trouble with breathing due to milk coming up through his nose and I had to periodically hold him and comfort him. Then I slept another couple of hours and even though I felt okay during the day I know that was not enough. It has helped that my parents arrived a week ago but they go to sleep early so at night it is just Nicole and me.

When you don’t have enough sleep your nerves become weak and you have trouble maintaining composure.
What has helped me is to get into a calm, sleepy state of mind while being awake late at night. I let all thoughts go and simply pretend I am sleepwalking. Sometimes I fall asleep on a chair holding him in my arms. I also periodically reward myself by entertaining myself a little bit. I must confess one of the sources of amusement these days has been the news about the Republican primary for President, especially the alarming rise of a certain flamboyant billionaire. I feel guilty about indulging myself in this, and in fact I abstained from reading too much of it on Saturday and Sunday (8/29 and 8/30) because these were the days of rededication and renewal of our spiritual practice, called Avani-Avittam. My father and myself did a lot of rituals, chanting and prayer on those two days. I also watch a little bit of sports. I tell myself that it is all healthy because underneath it my motivation really comes from caring about people, or at least I try to make sure it does. I hope the right candidate comes to fore.

As I have written in previous posts, Prashant loves it when we walk with him. It is what I do to calm him down when he is especially agitated. We walked to the farmer’s market on Sunday (8/30) morning and he kept turning his head around in all directions from within the baby carrier. Nicole said it is as if he looked in one direction and then realized he is missing the action in the other direction.

Nicole loves walking as well, and he takes him for a walk almost every morning. We also enjoy walking together. Another day we were walking and on First Street by the side of a home that sits near the edge of a little wooded area we saw a deer couple, the male with well-grown antlers. It is probably the second time we are seeing deer in that neighborhood. I guess they have adapted to urban living! We also went with Prashant and my parents to the Georgetown waterfront. My mother reminisced about her childhood growing up in Kochi. She said they used to travel quite a bit by boat. I haven’t done much of that, especially since by the time I was born there were quite a few other transportation options. One of these days I hope that all of us can go on a little boat trip on the Potomac.

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