Tired Tree Rooster

For the past few days, Stella and I have conducted our daily reading of The Secret Garden in the hammock out back under the massive pine tree, engaging in a sort of visceral onomatopoeia. As we read about Colin, the shut-in child of Mistelthwaite, falling for the sights and smells of the secret garden, we too grow increasingly smitten with the nature around us, even just the small things growing in our yard.

Tonight Stella said, 'I love being me here in this hammock right now.' Yummy stuff.

Unfortunately though for Stella, there's another parallel between her life and Colin's, which is that they both suffer from allowing their minds to play tricks on them. In his case, he's convinced himself he's going to die. In hers, she's convinced herself that she can't sleep. And it's working. She really can't get to sleep. It took her three hours tonight to go down, and she's already popped up twice. All my tricks - the hot bath, warm milk, lavender, soothing music - are played out. Being an insomniac myself, you'd think I'd be endlessly compassionate, but I'm whooped. Any ideas on how to lure the sandman her way?

Stella wants a tree like this one in our backyard in SF. I reminded her that we have a pretty big palm tree back there, and she replied, 'yeah, but I can't roost in that sucker!'