Gratitude 88

I am grateful for the gift of rest.  Now that I am entering my sixties rest is taking greater priority.  It isn't that I tire easily.  I just want to be quiet and still more often.  My life has been so full of noise and now it's time for the great cleanse.  Today, I finished work earlier than usual, arrived home at three and made a pot of cocoa.  I listened to music, then the radio and was on the phone a couple of times with one of my supervisors concerning a missing receipt for which I need to be reimbursed.  Then, without further ado, I let myself sink into a beautiful refreshing slumber.  I wasn't particularly tired and I slept well last night.  But I knew that there was something in my mind that needed reordering, so I thought it wise to let nature take her course.

I have always valued naps, even when I was younger.  When I was averaging four hours of sleep every night, two to three hour snoozes every day became de rigueur. 

I will explain here:

While still in my twenties I responded to what I knew (and still believe) to be a call from God to minister his love and presence in the streets and bars and clubs downtown, especially in the gay community.  I was responding to the huge social stigma that was still afflicting an entire subgroup and as a Christian this was especially sensitive to me as well as the ravages of AIDS.  I did not want to be part of this wave of fear and hate for which fundamentalists are only too famous.  I didn't yet feel that I could endorse same sex marriage (I'm okay with it now), but decided to be neutral.  And I certainly was not in favour of (still not) morally loose behaviour; so one night stands, friends with benefits arrangements and five minute marriages off forest trails or in public men's rooms were not things I would ever advocate for.

I was also working in home support, while attending early morning mass in the high Anglican church I attended.  I would be out late almost every night, often till one or two in the morning, sometimes later, visiting and talking with people, often simply being with lonely and frightened individuals as they suffered through their private pain.  Occasionally I would be up very early and arrive at four am in an all night café where I would quietly watch and pray as local sex workers were brought in and out with their pimps.  I was also unemployed for a couple of periods: in 1983 from June till December, then from August 1984 till March 1985.  While unemployed, then working afternoons, and writing my novel I would begin my day at 7:15 mass, often arriving for matins a half hour earlier, stay for breakfast with the clergy and the faithful, then walk home.  I would take a three or four hour nap, get up, take care of household stuff, do artwork (I was making and marketing batik wall hangings of, guess, tropical birds), then sit in a coffee shop somewhere to write my novel or visit a friend.  Then I would walk downtown, three to four miles, to work, at that time on the phones for a market research firm.  Then I would hit the twenty-four hour café downtown and some of the bars to be with the people I felt called to care for. 

I would arrive home late, manage four (five if I was lucky) hours of sleep, then repeat the cycle with early mass again.

The naps became indispensable to my wellbeing.

These days, my days are much less crowded, but somehow more productive and more creative.  I spend most of my evenings at home and I go to sleep at ten or so.  If I need to rest I don't pass up the opportunity.

Rest is like the punctuation in a well-written sentence.  It is the oasis in the daily desert of our grueling work and daily tasks.  It is a garden full of fragrant flowers, soft green leaves and sweet fruit hanging from branches and vines.

Yes, we need to work, to exercise, explore our world, reach out in love to those around us, eat well, and learn and create; but to complete our daily life cycle, me must never ignore the call to rest.  It is essential, especially for those who intend to age well.