August | 2016 | MissMeliss.com

I wasn’t going to do anything intense this month. I mean, yes, August is always the month when my creativity comes back like dandelions in a suburban lawn – profuse and persistent – but this morning (yeah, you read that right: morning) my muse, or at least the creative part of my brain is also downright persnickety.

I mean, it’s 6:43 in the morning and I’ve been up for more than an hour, which would be great if I actually WANTED to be awake, but I don’t. I want to be asleep, curled up with my husband, who, as I type this, is blissfully snoring away on his side of the bed.

It’s really kind of unfair.

Especially since I took half a dose of Benadryl at 1:43 this morning so I could breathe, an amount that typically renders me unconscious for the better part of a night and into the morning.

Tonight, though? It wired me.

So for three-and-a-half hours i tossed and turned and tried every trick I know in order to lull myself to sleep, except singing myself a lullaby, because everyone knows that if you’re the one singing you just wake up more.

Look, I know – I know – I shouldn’t be complaining about having so many projects firing up my brain right now, especially since I have friends who aren’t even getting postcards from their muses, let alone actual sparks or ideas or insights. And really, if I could give them just a couple of hours of this weird energy, I totally would.

Frankly, I could use the break.

Or at least, I could use a nap.

But instead of sleeping, I’m typing this in the dark (I like to write in bed.) And of course – of course – now that I’ve decided to be productive, sleepiness has come oozing back in, enticing me with its siren call.

“Melissa,” it says, “come back to bed. You know you want to.”

I refrain from pointing out that technically, I’m still in bed. Sleep doesn’t really care for the facts.

So I give up. I’m letting sleep have a second (third, fourth, twelfth) chance. I’m clicking “publish, and then I’m turning out the light (again) and nestling under the covers (again) to try and ignore the snores from Fuzzy that are adorable when I’m wide awake and infuriating when I’m trying not to be.

Insomnia.

My fickle muse’s new best friend.

When All Things Girl still existed, I had a regular column called “Sunday Brunch.” Well, the core team of ATG launched a new ezine, Modern Creative Life, in March, and I’m writing “Sunday Brunch” over there once a month. Here’s an excerpt from this month’s post:

With the flip of a calendar page (or a swipe of finger on a smartphone) July is gone for another year, and it is August, my month. The first summer month when, even though the sun is still reluctant to set, the days are discernably shorter, and the nights incrementally longer.

I’ve always been attuned to the night. While some people are morning people, happy and chirpy at first light, the only time I typically see dawn is when I haven’t yet been to bed. I have never been afraid of darkness; rather I crave it.

I come by it naturally.

The night before I was born, there was a full moon and an eclipse. If that doesn’t lock you into a special relationship with nighttime, I don’t know what does. (Recently, I asked my mother if she remembered any of that, and she reminded me that she’d been a little preoccupied with being in labor.)

You can read the rest of the post at Modern Creative Life, and if you’re so inclined, consider submitting an essay, poem, or piece of short fiction to our next issue, which launches in September and has the theme of Wisdom.