Bed

The days are getting longer – and the nights are getting lighter. And warmer. I trust that I am the only person to know how, generally, my husband is fast asleep as soon his head hits the pillow. He can sleep the sleep of the righteous because he has first done his tour of the house, checking that all the doors and windows are closed and secure, all the lights turned off, all the appliances unplugged and the fire embers are secure to be left to die behind the glass of the wood burner. Even if I tell him that I have already checked, years of ingrained habit coupled with an acquired OCD means that he will still do ‘his rounds’.

Nine times out of 10, I am in the bedroom long before he finally gets there – in my own routine, involving turning on my welcoming bed side light on, tuning the radio into either Radio 3 or, if it is not to my taste, tuning into a more restful Jazz FM or Classic FM, even if it means putting up with the adverts. And only then, after teeth have been cleaned, night cream applied (if I remember) can I relax with a spot of bedtime reading.

If this is of a sufficiently soporific nature, I soon find myself nodding off, turn my light out – but leave the radio on to listen to the end of the piece of music in the near dark. I am lulled into sleep by seeing ever changing colours that come with the music. This is a consequence of my chromesthesia, in which what I hear, somehow gets entangled in my brain, bringing with it a superimposed hued kaleidoscopic background. In the dark, with no other distractions to the senses, these intensify and if I am very relaxed, a piece of music can occasionally include a transitory flash of a landscape, or disjointed scenes and as if in a trailer to a film that no one else will ever see.

With the blessing of chromesthesia, while, like most people, I can still suffer from the fears and anxieties that seem magnified by the dark and quiet, mostly I can be dispelled by music. My go-to piece of music, comes from Norwegian Jan Gabarek. Listening to his sublime saxophone playing becomes transformed by the peculiar wiring in my brain, into intertwining ribbons spiralling upwards in a tower up lit by stained glass windows.

As a child, I was afraid of dark and the monsters that came with it. So much so that my father rigged up a red coloured bulb that he appropriated from his photography darkroom and strung up over my cot.

Monsters are gift to the film industry and have become engrained in our culture. It is from films, images on t-shirts, and even on cakes and iced lollies, that we know Frankenstein with bolts holding his head on, and green in colour. He was perhaps the first of the monsters to frighten us – until then we had only to fear the ghosts of the dead, and they could be relied upon (mainly) to retreat to their resting place after All Souls Day.

For who relish the thrill of being scared half to death, (I am not one of them), there are now other monsters to fill the gap to satisfy the craving of the adrenaline rush of fear. It may no longer be Frankenstein, who, once frightening, has become the most loved of monsters. His popularity in the monster world has surpassed even the cursed Mummies seeking revenge for being reawakened by prying archaeologists, chasing their human prey, in their tattered flowing bandages.

But there are howling werewolves, normal people who when there is a full moon turns into a wolf. Usually it involves a curse, or a bite from another werewolf. Another bite related monster is the Vampire, a product of Victorian theatre manager Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula. Once scary (and in the darkest of nights still so) they have also followed the pattern of other monster creations over time and become literally fodder for the food industry – as well as cakes, there are puffed snacks called fangs, although to my mind bear these no resemblance at all to any teeth.

Even the most benevolent of ghosts and ghouls, and their most recent manifestations, the wraiths in the Harry Potter series, the Dementors who force their victims to relive their worst memories and feed on human happiness are frightening indeed. These Rowling inventions are borne from the knowledge that our most primitive fears and scariest monsters are those of our own making and inhabit the darkest corners of our mind.

These may be frightening enough, but the real monsters are real. They are those who live among us - people who caused trouble, problems, or any form of upset that we cannot shake off. Most of the time we can cope with them, but they may always be there, lurking in the background ready to pounce when spirits are low, we feel tired, or in the middle of the night when our worries are magnified. That is the time to tune in, tune out, and let the colours of the music take over.

May your God bless you, bring colour to your life - and keep you safe from all things that may go bump in the dark nights. In the words of the old Scottish prayer:

From ghoulies, ghosties and long leggety beasties
And things that go bump in the night
May the good Lord deliver us!

Listening to the colours of the radio at night

Sunday night. Quiet reigns.
The dawn of dusk arrives
As night gently breaks the hold of the day

Windows tightly shut against rain, wind
And the fading blue ambulance sirens.
It is quiet outside - and in.

Deep ink black silence cocoons. Protects. Deadens.
And in the vacuum, allows in the monsters.
Bring back the noise and colour of life. What is to be?

Perhaps Miles will croon a green and golden sax solo to my forest trailer,
Perhaps Ella will vocalese to a feature film of dusty mahogany backrooms.
Slipping into the night, I escape and dream of light.

As a musical bonus, here is a link to Jan Gabarek playing live in Hamburg: Jan Gabarek Group

Yvonne