No desire to sleep away life's wonders

I'm with them. I do not want to go to bed early or sleep late. I want to know what is going on. I didn't really understand the tensions in my family until I learned to lie by the open heating grate that amplified every grown-up conversation spoken when little Donald was supposedly asleep.

I read with a flashlight under the covers after lights off, turned the radio back on to listen to the great swing bands - Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, Duke Ellington, Woody Herman, Count Basie, and so many others. At night the far stations came through clear from cities I promised myself to visit (and I have) - Cincinnati, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, New York.

I liked the night shift as a reporter; I was paid to stay up late. The night had greater possibilities than daytime for the unexpected story, for sipping coffee with an officer from homicide, for watching firemen lay ladders on the sidewalk so they could climb up the icy streets of the West End.

When I get up in the night as old men do, I always count the hours until 5:15, when I can escape sleep and walk downstairs into the dark so I will be ready for sunrise. Another day! Another day! Each added day is a victory over The Big Sleep.

I had a sickly childhood, and had reason to believe each night's warning ``If I do not wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.'' I still feel the light kiss of an enemy bullet on my cheek in the war from which I did not expect to return. I know each day is a gift, and I do not want to spend more hours than I have to in the unawareness of sleep.

This morning I slept late - 6:30 - and dressed in a rage at my sloth. What had happened? What did I miss?

I remember coming home after an appendix operation in 1940 and walking the small plot of grass beside our double decker, celebrating grass and uneven ground under my feet. Life has always been a gift.

There is, of course, a price to pay for this hunger for life. I do not know content, satisfaction, or acceptance. There is always more to do, a higher standard to achieve. I itch to live more, to work more - thank God it is Monday - to meet the unexpected.

At the moment the unexpected are the falling, twisting, shadows on my computer screen, the reflected maple leaves. That has never happened before. Now the sun has moved, and no shadows fall on my screen. I give thanks I was here to catch a moment I can hold in memory.

I will, however, miss what I do not know. I hate naps, and never schedule nap time on my Sony Clie. But I will nap. I will be writing away and then wake suddenly from a sleep I didn't know I had taken. My neck is sore, and 45 minutes have escaped my witness.

I am 79. I sleep through ``Law & Order: Criminal Intent.'' I snore through a new CD of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 25. I wake to find that the newspaper has slipped, so it is a tent for my feet. I fall asleep during a family discussion. My grandchildren think it funny. I do not. I may or may not have missed something important. I don't know. I was asleep.

I am amazed at those who drop off happily, accepting that they may miss the falling leaf, a look of concentration on a grandson's face as he does his homework on a laptop and, later, hear him improvising on the piano.

I was to taste, to touch, to feel, to hear, to see my life, never boring but always made rich by memory, by the unexpected extraordinary in the ordinary, by connections my brain has never before made.

This morning the green leaves are still holding on against the inevitable advance of yellow, orange, scarlet. Autumn is familiar, and forever new. I would not want to miss this moment as I slept.