One more from the last visit with Florence (and a perfect one it was).
“Ever since I was a young girl I’ve been a sleep resister,” she told me toward the end of my visit, around 1 a.m. I knew exactly what she was talking about and no words were necessary, she knew I knew. The phrase is a perfect description of my variety of insomnia most of the time. The mind resists shutting down. It’s not worry, per se, or anxiety, as much as just a stream of thoughts and ideas that does not want to be shut off. A clinging to consciousness.
“When I went off to Syracuse my father gave me a little bottle of blackberry brandy to have a few sips of before I went to bed, to help me get to sleep,” she recalled fondly, and then smiled as she reported that it didn’t really help– she remained a sleep resister right up to the end.
She was found dead in her computer chair, with the NY Times open in front of her, her glasses on and a bowl of M & Ms nearby, probably resisting sleep at 4 or 5 a.m. when her ticker, pronounced sound earlier that very day by some Brooklyn quack, finally gave out.
gratuitousblahg 