Naps

In general, I don't nap. It seems there are dozens of better things to do than nap and even when I might feel exhausted, committing to napping just doesn't come naturally. It probably has something to do with trying to deny the inevitability of my aging; the complete surrender to doing nothing that a nap requires and the feeling, however fleeting, that I'm slowing down.

Of course, there's napping and there's dozing off. Like watching TV and falling asleep. Or reading on a beach and falling asleep. Not premeditated attempts to nap, just the convergence of comfort, quiet and exhaustion taking over. I've even been known to nod off in a theater - once at a symphony and at various times watching movies. A man I dated for a nanosecond once asked me to take a nap with him. ?

But today I fully embraced the nap for maybe the 1st time in my life. I visualized it, I planned it, I gave into it. With an active weekend pulling me into late nights and early mornings, I returned home after a padding practice this morning, got out my down sleeping bag, tossed it over a cool, white comforter, laid down, read a page from the New Yorker, set my alarm and closed my eyes. No thoughts, no dreams, no leg spasms, no car alarms, no Jehovah's Witnesses at the door, no mobile, no TV, no music, no nothing.

With the sun filtering in through the blinds, I slept deep and hard, with no regrets at the run I wasn't doing, the sun I wasn't feeling, the music in the park I wasn't hearing, the stack of magazines I wasn't reading or the to-do list I wasn't crossing off. Of course, now I'm a little disoriented - stopping the momentum of the day can do that - but I feel calm, relaxed. A noodle-y, groggy sort of post massage-like chill.

Nap, I admit, I might be better off with you in my life. Here's to new adventures ahead of us.