A NIGHT OWL

Dear Spike:

It's 4 a.m. and you're fast asleep. Obviously, I'm not.

We've decided to make our drive to Oregon tomorrow in one 13-hour stretch, overnight. With any luck, you'll sleep most of the way.

Problem is that I can't sleep while I'm driving. (People try this all the time, and it never works.) So I'm keeping myself up late tonight in an effort to begin adjusting my nocturnal clock. It's possible, of course, that I'm only serving to make myself more tired, so this all could backfire.

I used to have nights like this all the time. For years I existed on three or four hours of sleep a night, generally in the wee hours of the morning. I'd paint or read or write or just sit up sipping coffee and chatting with friends.

In more recent years, I've needed a bit more rest, though six hours can usually still suffice for me. I still love the night. I love the steady chirping of the crickets, the sporadic whoosh of the cars and trucks on 7th East, and the occasional woeful moan of the freight trains as they rumble through the west side of town.

Sometimes I'm quite certain that you're going to grow up to be a night owl. Like your father, you're a restless sleeper. And often when you wake up at 2 or 3 or 4 in the morning, you just want to be let out of your crib so that you can read your books and play with your toys. Sometimes, when I come in late at night to check on you, I find you sitting quietly in your crib, eyes wide open, waiting.

One of my favorite things to do, when I was young, was to stay up late to greet your grandfather when he would come home from covering a ball game in Oakland or San Francisco. We'd eat canned chile with a generous helping of yellow mustard and stay up watching M*A*S*H reruns.

I have a vision of us in similar circumstances, someday. In my mind's eye, you're 8 or 9 or 10 years old. Maybe we're sitting on the front porch together in the still-dark hours of a warm summer's morning. Or maybe we're at a 24-hour diner, the kind where a waitress in a pink shirt an white apron just keeps filling your coffee mug no matter how long you sit there. Maybe we're playing chess. If so, you're probably winning. Or maybe we're eating chile with mustard and watching M*A*S*H reruns.

Or maybe you take after your mother. Maybe you're simply fast asleep. And I'm just peeking in through the crack in your bedroom door, just to make sure your covers are pulled up tight. That's fine, too.

If you happen to wake up, I'll be here.

Love,
dad