The Humdrum Life and a Nap

. . . and I drop a pencil

I value the humdrum rhythm of my life these days. By humdrum, in no way do I mean unexciting, boring, or predictable. What I mean is that it is free from the workday stress of the practice of medicine, the day-to-day decisions, many critical, all of them changing someone’s life in some way. Though I miss the patient contact, I cherish and appreciate the more predictable days I have now.

And in appreciating what I have, I try to capture moments; and try not to be so busy that time flits by. Nevertheless, busy it gets. And flit it does.

For no sooner do I raise my head and it is mid-afternoon. By this time, I’ve done my research, done my writing, submitted my article, or maybe even substituted a round of golf weather permitting, nine holes only, quite enough to make swing mistakes while enjoying the rhythm of nature that surrounds me on my walk.

The tempo now shifts to the afternoon as the earth’s and my sun moves from the center of the sky deep to the west making the light bright and gleaming.

Its position depends on latitude but mine doesn’t. It’s time for me to sit. Mid-afternoon is my cherished and precious time to read, contemplate, and consider my next writing venture. I cradle a book.

Yes, it has to be a book. It has to smell of almond, vanilla, and wood. Maybe even a bit musty. I must have that book in my lap with a light, maybe even the sun, over my shoulder.

My head nods over that book. And the nod means sleep. The nap. Once I thought I was wasting time napping, but now I go with it. I recover, especially if the morning has been busy.

During that brief interval when I thought napping was wasting time, I considered holding a pencil in my hand as a pretext for putting something on paper, as a pretext for staving off, for keeping Hypnos at a distance. No, there is no escaping. I nod. Hypnos won. The pencil fell to the floor. I am asleep in a vacuum of stillness.

No, I have not wasted time by napping.

The groggy wakefulness soon transitions to being alert and ready, ready to tackle the book in my lap. And all I need is twenty minutes. Twenty precious minutes and I am ready to go.

Now this is the humdrum part of the day . . .  somewhere between bottomless space and sleep, from deep in the universe to that point of rest where I am rejuvenated.

Humdrum and a nap. Lucky me.