Sleepless in Suburbia

Insomnia, marathons, and Japanese immersion

Monday 2:30 AM. I can’t sleep. Again. I go to the guest room, listen to a podcast in English and another in Spanish. Still awake. I write in my journal, a notebook with  illustrated animals on the cover that says Fauna de Colombia, a souvenir from my summer trip to Medellín. Still awake.

Why can’t I sleep? Work stress? Parenting stress? Anxiety after signing up yesterday for a triathlon in two months? Too much caffeine? All of the above?

At 4:45, I have a choice. Go for a swim or try to sleep for an hour before work. I pick the pool, not from righteousness or discipline or obligation, but because I suspect I’m too wired to fall back asleep. If I’m going to be tired regardless, I might as well move my body.

Ive struggled with insomnia for most of my life. The problem is I have trouble shutting down my mind at night, even if I’m exhausted.  Listening to podcasts usually helps me fall asleep, but if I wake up in the middle of the night all bets are off.

After a concussion, I took migraine medication, which not only dissolved the headaches, but put me to sleep. But once I stopped, the insomnia returned. Exercise helps. Not drinking alcohol helps.  Reducing stress helps. The sleeplessness peaks and ebbs, but is always latent. 

5:00 AM, it’s dark outside and the gym is empty inside, save half a dozen  members of the pre-breakfast club.

The pool is empty too. I take the left lane. As I swim I think about teaching a Spanish poem in class today. I think about triathlon training.

I think about a friend who yesterday ran the London Marathon.  Ten years ago, she taught me how to run long distances and we ran together many weekends in Manhattan, where she lived and still lives and Brooklyn, where I lived until we joined the pandemic exodus to the suburbs. When I ran my first marathon, in Queens, she came to cheer and met me near the end of the course to literally jog with me across the finish line.

But our paths diverged. I stopped running marathons after my second. She kept going the distance and has now run 11 marathons, including five of the world’s six major marathons: New York, Chicago, Boston, Berlin, and London. 

“I only need to run Tokyo,” she texts me yesterday from London. “Then I need to find a new sport. “

I joke about traveling to Tokyo to watch her run. In college, I studied intensive Japanese and had an immersive summer internship in Tokyo where I joined a group of salarymen at an advertising agency, working all day, drinking all night, and speaking almost exclusively in Japanese—a lifetime ago.

I don’t remember much Japanese anymore, but maintain a low-key affinity for Japanese food and pop culture, from Murakami novels to Midnight Diner episodes, from buying clothes at Uniqlo, clothes and stationary at Muji and books at Kinokuniya.

Apparently I’m not alone. By coincidence, yesterday’s New York Times Style Magazine is dedicated to the profound influence of Japan on global culture.

After 45 minutes in the pool, I stop swimming. Now the lanes are full. I warm up in the wood-paneled sauna, then hit the showers.

I will be tired later today. And I still need to deal with the chronic insomnia. But for now I am awake and alert, relaxed and ready for the day.  The swim has worked its magic.