grief and sleep

Having a very, very hard time sleeping since Harvey died. I've begun to feel like my body is getting back into the disciplines of dance and yoga, but sleep doesn't come easily to me. Being gentle with the self is good. Still haunted by the passage from Finnegan's Wake that was read at Harvey's memorial (a recording of James Joyce reading this), of washerwomen gossiping, washing clothes on the banks of the river, as they both slowly metamorphose into a stone and an elm:

Night now! Tell me, tell me, tell me, tell me, elm. Night night. Telmetale of stem or stone. Beside the rivering waters of, hitherandthithering waters of. Night!

I think I will miss Harvey's voice most of all, his voice, which was so gentle and soft it would put me to sleep in class (definitely not because of the material). I believe these things don't just fall into a void when someone dies--my own faith, my own background, tells me these live on in a consciousness and mystery we do not know yet, bound to the body as we are. But the loss is so deep--I can't imagine what his widow goes through, his children. He was married to his wife for 42 years! Who have I even known for 42 years, except for my own parents, my siblings? But the grief is because of love--a type of deep, alive grief that can only come from having cared for someone deeply. I'm so glad for having seen Harvey on August 2nd--the very last time I would ever see him. He gave me a big Harvey-hug and a smooch on the cheek! And so I take his love with me into the rest of my life.