At 2:30 AM, I was blasted awake by the music from the town a mile below me that was still in full festival mood. I described this music in a comment I made at the time as sounding like 1000 people singing a dirge. Not the usual banda music that I have more or less acclimated myself to over the 23 years I’ve lived in Mexico.  Granted, the music is less startling than the hundreds of LOUD cohetes* that had been going off since 5 AM yesterday morning, but at this point the cohetes had stopped and for Pete’s sake. It was 2:30 in the morning! 

People say if you can’t take noise, don’t move to Mexico, and I’m one of those people who say it. I could get up and look for earplugs. As a matter of fact, I had just located mine the day before as I spent a long afternoon organizing my desk clutter.  But it ended up being a shorter trip to just go to the two sliding glass doors that take up most of two walls in my bedroom and closing them. Problem solved. Music now muffled, I attempted (unsuccessfully) to sleep for  2 1/2 more hours!  That is how I find myself at 5:13 in the morning, still wide awake, writing yet another blog. Four hours from now, I have an English lesson to teach to Eduardo. At 5:30 PM, friends are coming to dinner. Will there be room for a nap in between? And why do I find myself fully awake after only 3 1/2 hours of sleep?

Recently, I read that the most important factor in maintaining health as we age is sleep. We can last longer without food and water than without sleep. Nonetheless, I find myself unable to sleep for longer than 5 or 5 1/2 hours.  During the day I am usually a bit dizzy and when I walk, a bit clumsy–having to touch things to maintain my balance. Is this a product of too little sleep? Is it time to give up my stubborn refusal to take sleeping pills?

For the past 3 hours, every time I have attempted to settle back against the pillows to try to sleep, I have experienced a ridiculous fear that my nasal passages and throat are going to close up and that I am going to suffocate. A few other times when this has happened, I’ve taken a blanket and gone out to the hammock to sleep—feeling the cool night air will help. And it has. But earlier in the evening we had a very heavy rain which probably blew in and soaked the hammocks in my open-sided gazebo, so I’m unwilling to risk the walk in the dark down to probable disappointment.

I could swim, as the water was hot enough before the rain to probably be perfect now, but going out to swim seems to indicate that I’ve given up on sleep, and 2 1/2 hours is not going to cut it for the busy day I have ahead. Dilemma.

5:31 and the first cohetes can be heard in the distance, followed by a dog’s insistent barks every two seconds for the past three minutes. Guess it is time to locate those ear plugs.

6:07 (That said, I believe the festival is now over, as the actual Saint Day for San Juan is on the 24th.) The sky is beginning to lighten. I think I will go out for that swim.

*cohetes de trueno ( thunder rockets)—aptly named fireworks loud enough to raise the dead!!!