Hopscotch

A Night Person

My first recollection of my life is a pitch dark night, I a three year old on board an old coastal steamer struggling through a fierce storm, running totally blacked out except for a faint blue light in a small iron cage.

It was 1940, and U-Boats were marauding off the north coast of Trinidad, preying on ships trying to sneak past them between the USA and Europe. Mom, Dad and I were on the overnight trip from Trinidad to the island of Tobago for a vacation.

I don’t know if that had anything to do with it, but my concept of Paradise throughout the rest of my early childhood was a well-lighted bedroom throughout the night.

For a couple of years after that crossing I remember trying every ruse and excuse to get into my parents’ bed when the lights were turned off, only to be unceremoniously thrown out.

Tough, but afraid of the dark


That changed in adolescence when at night the world became all mine.

There was more homework to do and I found that I did my homework best when the rest of my large family had gone to sleep; all, except for my mother, who always stayed awake until the last of her children was safely in bed.

Home was an L-shaped house. Mom and Dad’s room was on one end of the L, mine at the other, and we could see each other’s windows. After all the other lights were out for the night, in just those two windows at either end of the house a faint light shone. As I studied at my desk at my window, I knew Mom was awake, keeping me unseen but real company till I turned off my light and went to sleep. It was an unspoken, warm companionship that made the night doubly pleasant for me.


In just those two windows at either end of the house a faint light shone


Studying in Ireland made me even more of a night person. I studied much better after dark. That was no problem in the Autumn and Winter, when, at that latitude night would naturally fall very early.

Summer was the complete opposite. It doesn’t get dark in Ireland in the Summer until very late, sometimes around 10 p.m. I would often go to the late movie so that it would be dark when I started to study. The sun would rise very early, so I had to make the most of the short nights, and that meant studying right through to daybreak. That’s when I would go to bed. My body became very comfortable with that schedule, so comfortable, that I still prefer it.

Retirement is sheer delight if only for this one great pleasure: it doesn’t matter anymore what time I go to sleep. Before retirement almost every night presented me with a conflict: tradition, conventional wisdom, had drilled into me the idea that I had to sleep approximately eight hours a night, yet I would be lucky if I could get four hours of sleep. I could function very well on that but there was that nagging feeling of guilt about it.

Now, I can sit here at my computer at 2:00 a.m., leisurely reading news on the net or writing my blog, or experimenting with computer graphics, and not feel that it’s odd, or that I’d better try to get those eight hours sleep that I never will.

Sometimes I tell myself that my body clock must be set to Asian time, 15 hours or so ahead of Pacific Time: When I visit Malaysia, my Circadian Rhythm is completely in sync :)