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Last night was rough. I made myself go to bed at 12:30 a.m., even though I would have loved to remain on the couch, bleery-eyed and working on my latest knitting project while everyone slept. But it had been a long day, and I knew that today would be even longer if I didn't do what I was supposed to do.

The pain hit me two hours later, shooting through the muscles in my left shoulder blade, wrapping around my shoulder and squeezing until my arm and hand were both numb and fiery with pain. I fought waking up and giving in to the pain. I fought it so hard that my half-asleep dream turned to images of me, fighting an animal-machine monster with iron jaws gnawing my arm. I don't know how much time it took me to decide that facing the pain was less frightening than facing the rest of the dream.

I shook my husband awake with my good arm, pleading for him to wake up enough to knead the knotted muscles. He obliged, mumbling in his sleep. He dug his thumbs into the sheet of hard muscles at the base of my neck, muttering, "It feels like there should be a ... door ... here." When I asked what he was talking about, he mumbled something that was more snore than words.

The muscles loosened slightly, enough that I could get somewhat comfortable in my achy exhaustion. I laid there, awake, listening to my dog as she kicked at an itchy ear, listening to the hum of my husband's CPAP machine, listening to my own stuffy-nosed breathing, and definitely not sleeping. Our cluttered bedroom, with piles of books on every surface, the box of discarded dishes by the door, the smelly, snoring dogs, the sheets that need to be changed and the down comforter that needs to be replaced. No wonder I never sleep.

Half awake and all exhausted, I caught myself thinking about the best night's sleep I ever had. It seems absurd, to remember just one night of perfect sleep, but wouldn't someone who's eaten nothing but junk food remember that one perfect dinner at The French Laundry?

It was three years ago this month, before parenthood, when I took for granted that I could get a phone call at 8 a.m. (one of the few times good news has called early) and be on the road to Memphis two hours later. My friend's 12-year-old son had spent several weeks in suburban Memphis, visiting his grandmother. He had called his mom the night before, asking her to pick him up a week early; he was homesick.

It's four hours straight down I-55 from St. Louis to Memphis, a drive I've made so many times, but never to pick up a homesick child. My Memphis trips tend towards excessive drinking, excessive eating, and excessive sleep deprivation. When in Memphis, my insomnia has always been my friend. I can operate on two or three hours a night when I'm in that city without feeling so much as tug of sleepiness. It's adrenaline borne of being in a city that feels so much like home, but isn't, and knowing that in my limited time I have to get a fix that will last.

I was recovering from a strong bout of summer bronchitis with a cough that would keep me out of the smokey bars this time around. Just along for the ride, I mainly went because, one, I don't pass up a trip to Memphis, even if it's only overnight, and two, to reconnect with my friend. We had gone through a spell of not being friends, which ended three months prior with the news that someone she loved dearly had committed suicide. She was still deep in grief, and the four hour drive to Memphis would be a chance for her to talk, to maybe let go of some of the pain.

The legs of the trip and the grief-talk were interspersed with stops at thrift stores and Duckie's, a roadside gas station/gift shop outside New Madrid, Missouri. They sell bags of souvenir cotton bolls and mural-sized Elvis and Last Supper tapestries, just in case the slowed-down accent that appeared an hour earlier in Cape Girardeau wasn't enough of a sign that we had crossed the line from the lower reaches of the midwest into the upper reaches of the south. The Mason-Dixon had been crossed.

This is earthquake country, sharing a name with the New Madrid faultline that cuts through the area and caused the largest earthquake in the continental U.S. back in 1811. I came away from Duckie's with a sign, taped to the ladies room mirror, that read, "Hey kids! Become a Certified Fault Finder! Ask us how!". If ever there was a perfect job description for me, there it is. I didn't ask for more details, so I guess I'm just a Fault Finder, not certified; I just took the sign.

We arrived at my friend's moms home in suburban Bartlett, Tennessee in the hot late afternoon, a world away from the life by the Mississippi River that usually brings me to Memphis. This was the home made by an upstanding Southern lady, lush yet comfortable, filled with tasteful art and comfortable chairs. Her backyard, a jungle of sculpted flowerbeds, blooming in the misty June humidity - everything warm, dewy and fragrant. A small stream trickled through the middle of the yard, barely visible behind a screen of rosebushes from where we sat on the screened-in porch, under a slow-turning ceiling fan, sprawled on white wicker chairs while eating salt water taffy my friend's son had brought back from Biloxi.

We went to a nondescript chain restaurant for dinner, since it was close to the house, then returned for an early night. My friend insisted that I take the spare room while she and her son shared a futon in the office. Southern hospitality - I wish the rest of the world was like that, but I always feel awkward accepting it.

The spare room was small and white with a plump full-size bed covered with a quilt, pale and soft from years of wear and laundering. On the dresser, photos of their recently-lost loved one with her children in brass frames. I took a cool shower to rinse away the June heat and the road trip, slipped into my yoga pants and an old t-shirt and tucked into the bed with my book.

The sheets were even softer than the quilt. Old but not worn with touches of hand-embroidered lace at the edges, it had been decades since they were last crisp. Instead, they were light and delicate, soft as fresh-washed skin and just as warm. I sunk into a pile of down feather pillows and snuggled under the quilt, since I had turned the ceiling fan to its highest setting. The only thing better than a great sleep is a great sleep in a cool room.

I didn't fight sleep, and it didn't fight me. It arrived natural and easy. When I awoke in the warm glow of pre-dawn and slipped out of bed to make a trip to the bathroom, it wasn't an annoyance. It was a blessing, because I got the pleasure of falling asleep in that bed a second time, stretched out as long as possible, arms spread, taking up as much of that plush real estate as possible.

All those years that I cursed sleeping alone. All those times I shared beds with guys I would have been better off without, without any appreciation for the beauty and pleasure of having a bed to myself, of sleeping with the sound of no breath but my own. Sleeping alone is the only time we are truly by ourselves, oblivious to the world around us and temporarily immune to its trappings.

The second time I awoke, it was near 9 a.m. and my friend heard my stirrings. She and her family are "bed people". During family get-togethers, everyone winds up piled on a bed, lazing about and just being close to each other, concepts that are foreign in my family. Many afternoons I've spent at her house, stretched across the expanse of her king-size bed, wrapped in a blanket while watching afternoon talk shows, snuggling with her kids, simply being. So I wasn't one bit surprised when she opened the door to my room and climbed onto the bed with me. As perfect as the solitude of the previous night's sleep was, it was made even better by the presence of a friend.

We ate breakfast on the back porch, gathered her son's belongings, and made one brief trip downtown at Tater Red's. My friend needed voodoo supplies, and I needed an unlicensed, illegal German Elvis-esque doll for my dashboard. Even with the unclouded sun reflected off Beale Streets asphalt and the triple-digit temperature, I felt better than I had in ages. My linger cough was gone. My eyes, rested. Every muscle in my body limber and compliant instead of screaming in exhausted protest as I pushed them. I was rested. It took a spontaneous road trip to Memphis and a night on old southern linens to do it, but it worked. And on nights like last night, when the chaos of my day invades my night, I long for that bed, that house, and that solitude.

Tiny illegal German Elvis and me, hitting the road in Memphis again, searching for some pork butt and a good place to sleep.