there are many kinds and levels of sleep. be it a pit-stop nap, a deepening drowse, or a slow-hearted near-coma, our sleep is designed to prepare us for whatever is coming.

..

when jeanne woke up her jaw hurt because she had been grinding her teeth all night. routine got her showered and dressed for success and twocup coffee, but the dread

she felt upon arrival at work got her sore jaw grinding again.

..

billy had slept soundly. exhaustion had made falling asleep a snap. he woke refreshed,

but the fast seven miles he’d run last night filled his long muscles with acid, and he staggered around in the kitchen, concocting a blended vegetable beverage that looked and tasted like liquid swamp.

..

olive had been visited in her dreams by her late husband. she woke smiling but soon came to reality and dissolved into sobs.

she was cavernously lonely, engulfedly bereft, but she was a survivor and she always got her sleep.

..

no one survives without a thousand and more struggles. success comes when you conduct the struggle and don’t let the struggle conduct you.