Teddy With Sleep In His Hair

Here’s Teddy, washed with the soft light of morning, sleep still clinging to his coat.

Do you ever wake in the morning with sleep in your eyes? Sleep is actually rheum, a thin, watery mucus discharge that during the day is wiped away by blinking. At night, a small amount of rheum may accumulate at the corners of your eyes and dry. Sleep is especially common in childhood and led to the sandman myth. The sandman is said to sprinkle sand or dust on or into the eyes of children at night to bring on dreams and sleep.

When I go out to the barn in the morning, I often find that the donkeys and horses have little bits of shavings in their manes or stuck to their coats. The shavings are evidence that they spent a restful night, lying down comfortably in their stalls. The shavings always seem to me to be the equine equivalent of sleep, a vestige of the night that is shaken off as they begin their active day outside.

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