I’ve entered into my own, personal Third Trimester of Life, and with that comes a whole lot of physical changes.
Worst of all, I rarely sleep. When I do, it’s like a light switch just shutting off only to wake up due to night sweats – or my brain spinning rapidly about stupid, random things.
That overnight ebbing and flowing stream of consciousness goes like this:
“I think I forgot to put my moisturizer on”…..“Did I set the alarm?“…..“How are the kids doing?”…..“Did I make that car payment?”…..“What day was I planning to drive to Buffalo?”…..“Why is there a tractor-trailer driving on our country road at Midnight?”…
…and so on.
I exercise regularly and while that used to help, it really doesn’t any more. Yawn.
Friends, family, – and doctors – suggest medication – or even the “holistic” types of sleep-inducers, but I’m not having ANY of that. To take Melatonin then dealing with the after-effects is like waking up the next morning with the worst hangover – just like in college while on my way to the 8 a.m. Physics class. Both Melatonin – and that 8 a.m. class – will never happen again on my watch.
But one magical night, as I was again attempting to dive into Dreamland, I believe I had Divine Intervention from my mother, who flooded my head with the following prose:
A flea and a fly in a flue
Were imprisoned, so what could they do?
Said the fly, “let us flee!”
“Let us fly!” said the flea.
So they flew through a flaw in the flue.
Then this one:
Celery, raw
Develops the jaw,
But celery, stewed,
Is more quietly chewed.
Any guesses out there? These were composed by the clever poet Ogden Nash, who was born August 19, 1902 and kept my mom and I chuckling for years.
I would often take one of Ogden’s books of light-hearted poetry off the bookshelf in our living room, and enjoy his timeless quips and brilliant take on life, even as a young child. My mother likely inherited her love for Ogden’s poetry from my grandfather, who wrote his own share of poetry and journals and shared with family members. Ogden Nash wrote many, many longer poems, but my childhood brain remembers the short and sweet ones, including this zinger:
Candy
is dandy,
But liquor
Is quicker
Then there was the one called “Sweetbread.” As a child, I thought sweetbread was some delicious treat. My mother gently broke the news that sweetbread was something I would NOT EVER like and thankfully did not go into details.
This Sweetbread gazing up at me
Is not what it purports to be
Says Webster’s in one paragraph
“It is the pancreas of a calf.”
Since it’s neither sweet nor bread
I think I’ll take a bun instead.
Many of Ogden’s short poems had a great play on words (“Who wants my jellyfish? I’m not sellyfish!”) and dealt with food and bugs, but he also wrote about life changes and general observations. Nash was ahead of his time, kind of like Jerry Seinfeld was in the 1990’s. One of those observations hit home as my “maturing” colleagues and I seem to be attending more funerals than weddings:
Senescence begins
And middle age ends
The day your descendents
Outnumber your friends
During my 3 a.m. encounter with Ogden’s fun collection of poems, I looked on a somewhat dark wall at a picture of our two Golden Retrievers, Pumpkin and Bear. Before I finally fell asleep, I remembered this one:
The truth I do not stretch or shove
When I state that the dog is full of love.
I’ve also found, by actual test,
A wet dog is the lovingest
Bear loving his pool time
So, take the time to look up Ogden Nash, better yet, buy one of his books, sit down, and laugh out loud. Ogden’s gentle humor may help you relax and reminisce about your happier moments as a child…and even may help you head to Dreamland.
On a final note:
God in his wisdom made the fly
And then forgot to tell us why.
ZZZZZZZ…Sleep tight, friends! And thank you, Ogden.
Courtesy: Poemhunter.com/ogdennash
Sink or Swim 