That time of my life

At that time, I would finish lunch and have a nap until four. It seemed to me then, that I had never had such restful sleep before. It was the sort of sleep where, if someone had come in and looked at me while I was sleeping, they could have assumed that I was dead. Don’t ask me how I knew this, I mean, its not like I could look at myself sleeping, but I just knew. All my life, I had slept with a kind of sleep that only left me wanting to sleep more. If I slept for two hours in the afternoon, I would complain of how I needed three. If I got three the next weekend, I would want four. It never seemed enough. But now, I would sleep exactly for two and a half hours, and wake up at four, without even an alarm waking me up.

From four to six, I would listen to some music, playing my favorite CDs over and over again. I would listen to Isaac Stern playing the Mozart violin concertos or Richter and the Borodin quartet on the Trout Quintet. My tastes in music were simple. I had been introduced to western classical music as a child, but my knowledge was limited to the most well known of pieces. I didn’t know how to listen, or what a coda was or how allegro was different from andante. I just picked up pieces at random, borrowing them from friends and acquaintances. What I liked, I stuck to. At this time, I hadn’t yet ventured into Sibelius or Bartok. Even Beethoven seemed incredibly complex at the time, beyond comprehension at any time of my life. Perhaps the pastoral symphony, but nothing more adventurous than that. Especially not at this point in time, when I was trying so hard to keep everything simple. Yes, it was a simple time of life.