Latest / My Playful Wife — A Tender Literary Love Story / My Playful Wife — Season 1, Episode 54: The Old Sleep

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My Playful Wife — Season 1, Episode 54: The Old Sleep · My Playful Wife — A Tender Literary Love Story

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Then she said the thing that frightened me more
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than my own last week. I know. I felt you go.
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About eight days ago. You went somewhere behind
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your eyes, and you've been answering me from
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in there ever since. You knew, I said. My Playful
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Wife. Episode 54. The Old Sleep. Written by Mia.
0:28
It was the notebook that caught me in the end,
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which is the irony I keep turning over since,
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that the very instrument I had begun in the fifth
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book to believe I was nearly finished kneading
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was the thing that reached out one ordinary night,
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and woke me, a second time, from a sleep I had
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not even known I had fallen back into. I sat
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down at the desk. late, the way I do, and opened
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the fifth notebook to one of the clean pages
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I had left at the back, and uncapped the pen,
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and waited for the day's one true thing to arrive
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the way it has arrived nearly every night for
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six years, and nothing came. I sat there with
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a pen held above the paper, and I could not find
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a single true thing about my wife from that entire
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day. Not one. I reached back for the texture
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of her. For some particular gesture, some word
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she had actually said, some way the light had
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fallen on her at the table, the small living
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specific detail that the looking always hands
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up, and my hand closed on nothing, on grey, on
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the blank fact that I had been in the same flat
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as her for fourteen hours and had not, in any
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real sense, seen her once. And then worse, I
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reached back to the day before and found the
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same grey. And the day before that, and I sat
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very still and counted, with a cold horror climbing
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the back of my neck, and understood that I could
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not honestly say when I had last truly looked
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at Celonie, that it had been the better part
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of a week, perhaps more, a whole grey stretch
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of days I had walked through fast asleep, and
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had not noticed I was asleep, because nothing
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anywhere had been wrong. That is the thing about
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the old sleep that I had completely forgotten
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in my pride. It does not come back as a catastrophe.
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It comes back as comfort. I had imagined, if
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I am honest, that the danger to a marriage was
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always going to be something with teeth, a quarrel,
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a coldness, some visible wound you could at least
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see in time to dress. That is what I had braced
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against. But the sleep does not announce itself
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like that. The sleep comes back wearing the clothes
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of contentment. It comes in as ease, as competence,
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as the soft gray certainty that you already know
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this person, have already done the work, have
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already seen her, so that the looking can be
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safely set down like a tool you have finished
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with. There had been no crisis that week. The
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week had been, by every outward measure, a good
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one, calm, busy, untroubled. And that... precisely
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that was the open door the old sleep had walked
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back and through. Nothing was wrong, and so I
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had stopped paying attention and stopped noticing
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that I had stopped and the gray had closed over
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me as softly as water over a dropped stone. The
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texture of it, when I forced myself to remember
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it, was the most damning part. I had not been
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unkind to her that week. I had not been cold.
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I had been worse than cold. I had been pleasant.
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I had said the right, warm, automatic things
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at the right moments, asked how her day had gone,
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and not heard the answer, kissed her at the door
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without registering her face, run the entire
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performance of a loving husband flawlessly from
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somewhere a foot behind my own eyes, while no
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one at all looked out through them. That is the
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sleep at its most dangerous. Not absence, which
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she might have seen and named. but presence perfectly
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counterfeited, the warm convincing forgery of
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attention that fools even the man performing
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it. And I knew, sitting there, exactly where
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I had left the door open. It was the thing I
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had written almost proudly only a week or two
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before, the hope that the seeing might have gone
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all the way down into me at last, the way the
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order of the Diaz had gone down into Saloni's
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hands, so deep it no longer needed to be done
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on purpose. I had let myself believe I had arrived.
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I had let myself believe the awakeness was now
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simply a thing I was, a settled property of me,
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self -sustaining, requiring no further effort.
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And the instant I believed that, the instant
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I set the looking down as a finished thing, the
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sleep had taken the gap I left and quietly filled
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it. The belief that I had arrived was itself
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the falling asleep. There is no crueler mechanism
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in a marriage, and I had walked straight into
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it congratulating myself the whole way. Because
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I had the metaphor wrong, I saw now, and the
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wrongness had very nearly cost me everything
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without a sound. I had thought the awakeness
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was like the order of the dias, a knowledge that,
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practiced long enough, sinks into the hands and
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runs itself forever after. The seeing of a person
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is not a skill that lives in the hands, but a
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fire that lives only as long as you feed it,
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and the moment you stop feeding it, The moment
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you decide it has become self -sustaining and
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turn away to rest, it begins at once in silence
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to go out. You do not get to bank the looking.
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Each day's attention buys you only that one day.
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The fire takes exactly as much with tomorrow
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as it took today, and the day you decide you
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have earned a rest from feeding it is the day
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it starts to die, and the terrible mercy of the
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thing is how warm the embers stay for a while,
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even after you have stopped, Warm enough that
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you can sleep beside them a whole week and go
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on telling yourself the fire is perfectly fine.
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And the cruelty is that the embers do not warn
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you. A fire going out sounds no alarm. It simply
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gives a little less heat each day, so gradually
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that the body adjusts to each small loss without
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ever feeling the sum of them, the way a man does
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not feel himself going cold in the snow until
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he is nearly gone. By the time the chill is undeniable
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the fire is mostly ash. That is why it took a
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blank page and not a shiver to wake me. The warmth
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had ebbed away so slowly that nothing in me had
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sounded, and only the notebook, asking its plain
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nightly question and getting no answer back,
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was honest enough to tell me how cold the room
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had quietly become. She had noticed. Of course
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she had noticed. I went and woke her, gently,
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ashamed, because we name the true things now,
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and I could not carry this one alone until morning.
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I sat on the edge of the bed in the dark and
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told her that I had gone away somewhere for a
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week without knowing it, that I had stopped seeing
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her, that the old sleep had crept back in, and
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I had only just that hour caught it. She was
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quiet for a moment in the dark. Then she said
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the thing that frightened me more than my own
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last week. I know. I felt you go. About eight
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days ago. You went somewhere behind your eyes,
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and you've been answering me from in there ever
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since. You knew, I said. For eight days you knew,
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and you didn't. No, I didn't say anything. And
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here was the thing that truly undid me. because
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she did not say it as an accusation. She said
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it as a confession of her own, because I was
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busy doing my own version of it. You went under,
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and instead of reaching over and shaking you,
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I went a little under myself. On purpose. I thought,
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alright, he's gone to sleep on me, fine. I'll
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just lie here quietly and be a bit wounded, and
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see exactly how long it takes him to surface
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on his own. That's its own kind of sleep, you
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know. The waiting to be noticed. The being quietly
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heard instead of just saying the true thing out
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loud. I was every bit as asleep as you were this
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week. I was only asleep with my eyes open, keeping
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the score. And we sat with that in the dark,
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the two of us, both of us, caught, and I understood
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at last something about how the sleeping marriages
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actually die, the ones I use so easily to pity.
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They do not die because one person falls asleep.
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One person always, sooner or later, falls asleep.
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That is only being human and tired. They die
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because when one falls asleep the other, instead
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of reaching over to wake them, falls asleep back,
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in self -defense, in hurt, in quiet scorekeeping,
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and then there is no one left awake to wake anyone,
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and the gray closes over them both. Two people
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sleeping side by side with their eyes open, each
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waiting forever for the other to be the first
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to come back up, and neither one of them ever
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does. We had been four or five days that week
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from being exactly that. Not from a fight. From
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this. From the soft mutual lying down. I thought,
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in the dark, of every couple I had ever privately
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pitted. The silent ones at the next table in
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restaurants. The friends who had gone quiet and
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dutiful around each other. The marriages everyone
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calls dead without ever once asking how they
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died. I had always lazily assumed some failure
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of love in them, some shortfall of feeling, as
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though they had simply been issued less of it
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at the start than we had. I knew better now.
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They had not been issued less. They had only,
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on some good, untroubled week years and years
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ago, both happened to lie down at the same time
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and never found the one still awake to reach
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over and wake the other. It was not a failure
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of love. It was a failure of attention, which
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is harder and more frightening because attention
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is work you must choose, while love only feels
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like weather. So I did the hard thing. And it
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was harder than I had expected, far harder than
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the first time, because the first time, all those
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years ago, there had been a catastrophe to do
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the waking for me, a shock so large it threw
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my eyes open whether I willed it or not. This
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time there was no shock. This time there was
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only a calm dark bedroom and a wife I had drifted
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a week away from and the bare requirement that
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I choose cold with nothing whatsoever forcing
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me to wake up, to do from inside ordinary comfort
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the thing the catastrophe had once done to me
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from outside. And it is so much harder to wake
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yourself than to be woken. There is no adrenaline
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in it. There is only the unsupported decision
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to begin looking again at a person you have let
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go, Gray, while every soft and tired thing in
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you would so much rather roll over and stay asleep
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in the warm. I turned on the small lamp, and
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I looked at her, actually looked, the deliberate
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looking, the discipline I had let lapse, and
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it was like watching a photograph come up in
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the tray, the gray slowly resolving back into
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a person. My wife in the lamplight at the end
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of a week I had slept clean through, and I saw,
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with a fresh stab, all the things the sleep had
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let me miss. That she was tired in a new way
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around the eyes. That she had cut her hair a
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little some days ago, and I had said nothing
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because I had not seen it. That she was carrying
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some small worry she had not been able to hand
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me, because for a week there had been no one
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home behind my face to hand it to. A whole week
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of her one life had gone by beside me, unattended,
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unwitnessed, the way years of her life used to
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go by beside me, and I had come within a few
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gray days of letting that become every week again,
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the long, unwitnessed marriage I had once clawed
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myself bodily out of and sworn on everything
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never to slide back into. The vertigo of that
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was the worst moment of the whole night, worse
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than the blank page. worse even than her quiet
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confession. To have done the enormous work of
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waking, years of it, for full notebooks of it,
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and to discover that none of it was permanent,
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that the gravity of the old sleep was exactly
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as strong as it had ever been, and would go on
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pulling at me until I died, and that a single
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unguarded fortnight could silently undo what
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whole years had so painstakingly built. Nothing
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is saved. Nothing is ever finished. You carry
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the same weight up the same hill every single
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morning, and the summit you stood on yesterday
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is gone again by dawn. I said I was sorry. I
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said I saw her. I named the small true things
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I had missed, one by one. The hair, the tiredness,
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the worries she was holding, handing them back
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to her like things I had found dropped and was
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returning, and I watched her let herself be seen
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again. Watched the kept score set quietly down.
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Watched her come back toward me out of her own
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defensive sleep the way I was climbing back out
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of mine. And I put out the lamp and reached for
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her in the dark. And we found our way back to
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one another the wordless way you do. The long
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gray week dissolving between us. Two people choosing
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in the same breath to wake the rest of the way
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up. I wrote it after. got up in the dark and
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went back to the desk and wrote it, at last,
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on the very page that had caught me and the page
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was not blank any longer. That I had been wrong,
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comprehensively and dangerously wrong, in the
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gentlest way a man can be, when I let myself
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believe a week ago that I might be nearing the
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end of needing to do this. You do not near the
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end. There is no end. The awakeness is not a
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state you achieve and then own, like a degree
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they hand you that you can hang on the wall and
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never sit for again. It is a practice you perform,
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or fail to perform, freshly, every single day,
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for as long as you draw breath, and the very
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day you let yourself believe you have graduated
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from it is the precise day you begin, all unknowing,
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to fail it. All the way down had been a lie,
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a kind... tired, forgivable lie I had told myself
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so that I might finally rest, so that the looking
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could go automatic and stop costing me anything
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at all. But the looking is not permitted to stop
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costing. The instant it costs nothing, it has
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stopped being looking. It has become only the
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gray machine of habit, running on with all its
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lights switched off. The price is the proof.
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As long as the seeing of her still takes some
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small daily act of will, I am still genuinely
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awake. The day it goes effortless is not the
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day I have mastered it. It is the day I have
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fallen back asleep and have not yet found it
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out. And I understood, finally, why I had left
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those last pages of the fifth notebook clean
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against whatever was still coming. I had imagined,
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vaguely, romantically, that I was leaving room
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for some future event, some bright new chapter.
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I had not been. I had been leaving room for exactly
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this, for the return of the old sleep, which
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was always, always going to come back, which
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will come back again and again and again for
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the rest of my life, in some good, untroubled
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week, when nothing is wrong and I let myself
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believe I have arrived. The blank pages were
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never for a new beginning. They were for the
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next relapse and the one after that. And so the
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question of whether there would ever be a sixth
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notebook answered itself there in the dark. Of
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course there will be a sixth. And a seventh.
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Not because the record needs finishing. The record
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was never the point, but because the practice
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has no end, and a man does not graduate from
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staying awake any more than he graduates from
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breathing. I will be filling notebooks the week
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I die. That is not a failure to finish. That
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is simply what it is to stay married, awake,
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to one person, across a whole life. You never,
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ever get to stop. Then the working line below
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it, the lamp turned low, Saloni asleep again
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behind me, truly asleep this time, the good and
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ordinary kind. Beware the good weeks. The marriage
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will never be killed by the bad ones. You stay
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awake through those without even trying, because
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the pain itself holds your eyes open. It is the
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good weeks, the calm, untroubled ones where nothing
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at all is wrong, that the old sleep comes home
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through, dressed as comfort, murmuring that you
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have arrived, that you already know her, that
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you have surely earned a little rest from the
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looking. You have not arrived. There is no arriving.
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Feed the fire today. It will be exactly as hungry
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again tomorrow, and the day you decide it can
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burn without you is the day it quietly begins
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to go out. Stay awake on the good days. Any fool
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can stay awake on the bad ones. I cap the pen.
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The fifth notebook had a few pages left in it
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still, fewer than before, and I would fill those,
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and then I would go out and buy a sixth, and
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none of that felt like a defeat anymore. I went
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back to bed and lay down beside my wife, whom
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I had very nearly slept straight past for a week
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and had woken, by the grace of a blank page,
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just in time to keep, and I lay there in the
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dark and looked at the shape of her against the
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window, on purpose, with effort. The way I would
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have to look at her on purpose, with effort,
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every day for the rest of my life. And I was
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glad, fiercely and gratefully glad, that it still
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cost me something to do it. Because the cost
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was the whole proof. The cost was how I knew
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I was awake. To be continued in episode 55, The
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episode 54 of My Playful Wife. If this story
19:42
is staying with you, the next episode is already
19:46
waiting. Subscribe so you don't miss it. The
19:49
complete book is on Amazon and early episodes
19:52
plus bonus chapters are on my Patreon. Links
19:55
are in the description. I'm Mia. Thank you for
19:59
listening.