ROBIN WRITES: Naptime
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By Robin Garrison Leach
When God created Mankind, he knew we’d need the basics. Food. Water. Shelter. He provided a lush garden to meet those needs. Then Adam took a nap, Eve was added to Eden, and Paradise was complete.
We live outside Eden’s gate now and life isn’t always idyllic. But napping, that solitary state of sweet inertia, has remained as a tiny taste of that lost Paradise.
We’ve all felt the blurring of life’s rough edges as our eyelids droop in resignation. The clock and the sun belie this sudden need for sleep, but our bodies feel the weight of the conscious world pulling away.
Our hearts thump a lullaby against our eardrums and the cadence is hypnotic. In moments, we’re swaddled in slumber.
We nap throughout our childhoods, sometimes willingly and sometimes in protest, but never really appreciate what a wonderful thing a nap can be.
Then we become parents, and a nap becomes as precious as any luxury of life.
There were times, when my kids were small, when I would have given a year of my life for a snuggly, mid-afternoon nap. I learned, instead, to grasp tiny snippets of shuteye whenever I could.
I would tell the kids I was “resting my eyes”. I’d sprawl on the couch, watching them watch TV, and the weight of watching forced my eyelids shut. I tried to pretend I was still “there” with them by chuckling along with their giggles and answering questions as if I actually understood them.
They could have asked to run with sharp scissors or stick their tongues in electrical outlets and I would have mumbled, “Uh-huh…go ahead.”
All I needed was just a “few minutes”. In napping time, a “few minutes” can stretch on indeterminately. Every interruption is an added bundle of minutes. With this formula, I could have napped for days during those years.
They learned, as those early years went by, to watch Sesame Street, sing the songs quietly, and just let me rest my eyes if they wanted those eyes to focus against the directions on the back of the Hamburger Helper box when suppertime came.
After years of practice, I have become a nap expert. The clock ticks toward 2pm, and I respond to the sound in Pavlovian predictability. In seconds, I am a bobble- headed caricature of every wayward soul who ever tried to sit through a boring Sunday sermon.
It is inevitable. I must nap or fall face-first into the coffee table.
Some people nap sitting up. I think my husband could nap standing up. I need to lie down in the position of the dearly departed.
Sound bothers me; it’s as if my ears have been trained to tune into noise in direct proportion to my ability to move. The years of fake-listening to the kids must have done that.
But once I’m asleep, few noises can disturb my doze.
There is nothing more comforting than to wake up after a nap, unsure of the day or time, yet confident the world still turns and life goes on just as it had before you stepped away.
God smiles as we stumble back into ourselves, tousle-haired and newly alert. He’d always known just what we needed most, and naps are certainly among His finest blessings.
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■ Robin is a freelance columnist who lives and writes in Quincy, Illinois. Contact her at [email protected].
