Little White Pills

I’m not used to taking drugs, but every evening since we arrived here Slava has been giving me a little white pill.  We usually go to bed around midnight, which is 10:00 in the morning Eastern Standard Time.  We’re supposed to stay in bed eight hours if we can, which means getting up around 6:00 pm EST.  Those little Russian pills seem to help.  I wonder what’s in them?

I’ve never taken sleeping pills before, so I can’t compare experiences.  I do know that I’ve had some strange dreams…

Take this one:  I’m singing in a new choir, and I’m puzzled by the sheet music. Instead of seeing notes on a music clef, I see puffy clouds.  Now, normally I sing alto, but I couldn’t figure out where in each cloud was my note.  The sensible thing to do, I thought, was to sing soprano – that would be at the top of each cloud.  Unfortunately, altos have a hard time reaching soprano notes.  I did fairly well throughout the piece as we rehearsed it over and over, but on the biggest stretch I was often flat.  Each time we went through the piece I tried my best.  Sometimes I made it.  Sometimes not.

Another night I was applying for admission to a Catholic girls’ high school.  There were tests to take, paperwork to fill out, interviews to go through.  I really wanted to advance my education, so I was diligent at each step.  I woke up before I found out whether or not I’d be admitted.  Nevertheless I had some comfort in being aware that Barak Obama was having just as much difficulty getting into the Catholic boys’ school.

Go ahead and psychoanalyze me.  I’ll give you a head start.  During the day I struggle with comprehension in what I hear and what I read in Russian.  Some of it makes sense to me, and some of it doesn’t.  I use a leap of imagination to tie together parts of what I comprehend.  Unfortunately I’m often wrong on even what I thought I understood.  Maybe those little white pills aren’t helping me as much as I thought.