Sandman

I love eyeboogers.

To me, a healthy collection of eye gunk is the sign of a good night's sleep, and good dreams (a visit from the Sandman, perhaps?), and this morning's were particularly generous, even with little eyelash pieces stuck in the middle of them. I guess I'm particularly proud of "sleep" in my eyes (as my mom used to call it), because it's a sign that I actually slept through the night with my eyes closed. Many mornings I wake up dry eyed and uncomfortable from having slept with them open. The left eye hurts in particular. It hasn't been quite right since I poked it with that palm tree a few years ago.

I remembered this morning, as I recalled the bizarre dreams of alien babies and super powers that accompanied my "sleep", that when I was 2 or 3, I used to wake in the night with my eyes sealed shut from too much gunk. I don't know if this was something that happened once or twice because I was sick, or if it was a regular childhood occurrence, but I do have a vivid visual memory of my mother rushing to my bedside with a warm, damp face cloth to dab on my eyes while I called out afraid in the dark (and how, exactly, pray tell, do I have a visual memory of this?). Maybe that's how I learned to sleep with them open. Well, I should unlearn it. I'm sure, if they stick together again, I can manage to stumble blind to the bathroom and rinse my eyes out myself.