The Nap of Luxury

Today I indulged myself.  I took an afternoon nap.  I don’t do this very often but is there anything more delicious than being able to sneak in a sleep in the middle of the day?  I think about some of those office days when I just went into a slouch and would have given up my afternoon coffee if only I could have curled up somewhere unseen instead of head-lolling with my fingers dead on the keyboard, my brain no longer functioning.  I think back to when my 3 pre-schoolers were on the go and did not know the word ‘nap’, when all I wanted to do was shut the door and sink my head to the pillow and let myself drift away. Well today I forgot the voices that said I am wasting the day, that the laundry isn’t finished, that I haven’t yet decided on what to do for supper;  I forgot that the sun is shining and that the grass needs cutting, even though it is not yet May, that my daffodils need deadheading, and the dog wants to play.  I just boldly climbed the stairs, dispensed with sweater and shoes and slipped between the covers and let the pillow come up to cradle my head because when the eyelids droop, the body flags and the mind goes into a hold pattern nothing is as luxurious as putting head to pillow and pulling up the blanket … except, perhaps, lying in a gently swinging hammock in the shade of a large old tree on a brilliant hot day, with a glass of ice something in my hand, listening to the singing of the birds and the hum of the cicadas.