“Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep. . .”

I am often amazed, as I am sure many of you are, when “things” pop into my head that I haven’t heard since I was a kid and amaze myself again by being able to recite that “thing” in its entirety. I am also sure that some of you did exactly that after reading the title of this piece. C’mon, admit it. If you are like me, you probably remember the later version of this Christian prayer: “Now I lay me down to sleep/I pray the Lord my Soul to keep/If I should die before I ‘wake/I pray the Lord my Soul to take.” The earliest version is said to be written by George Wheler in his 1698 book The Protestant Monastery and goes like this: “Here I lay me down to sleep/To thee, O Lord, I give my soul to keep/Wake I ever, Or, Wake I never/To thee O Lord, I give my Soul to keep for ever (sic).” Why I sill remember this is a mystery to me, and what makes it even more mysterious is that I was raised Jewish!

There are two completely unrelated events that led me to ruminate about “sleep/sleeping,” neither of which, you may be relieved to know, has anything to do with my soul. The first is from a few days ago when, for some unknown reason I had a rather restless night, which resulted in not getting much sleep. This led to a conversation with my wife about the fact that I probably don’t get enough sleep. Let’s just say I have mixed feelings about this. The second is directly related to something I saw today when I went down to the mailroom in the lobby of our building to check the mailbox. It was the latter that really started the wheels turning, which led me to thinking about how many idioms there are in the English language that are directly related to sleep and/or sleeping. You know, phrases like: “Asleep at the wheel” (not paying attention); “Sleep/sleeping like a baby” (sleeping well); “Sleep on something” (delay deciding); “Awaken a sleeping giant” (walking or rousing a powerful source that was previously sleeping.” This one is often used to describe the USA before entering into WW II); “Lose sleep over something” (worry too much); “Put me to sleep” (boring); “Let sleeping dogs lie” (ignore a problem instead of dealing with it and creating a worse problem). There are many, many more, but these are a few of the more popular ones.

If you’re thinking that I omitted an oft used one from my list, give yourself two points. The street I live on is currently being torn up as the city are installing a new power grid because of a rather large new development under construction at the end of our street. For the past several weeks, the street has been bustling with digging and installing crews with lots of heavy machinery like steam shovels, generators, dump trucks, etc. As I exited the elevator, which gives me a clear view of the street and all the equipment, I was given a front row view of the missing idiom: “Sleeping on the job.”

Doesn’t he look restful? Don’t you want to know what he is dreaming about? I do!

Los Angeles 2023