Last week, when I stopped to pick up my daughter for a girl day away, I thought I'd pop in and hug my grandchild, Landon. He's 19 months old, and at 10:10 am he was STILL asleep. He'd been tucked in at 8 pm the night before. When I dropped Leslie off at 2:20 pm, I popped back in, sure he'd be awake now. He was down for his nap. That's a lot of sleep!

When he is awake, he's full of energy, giggles, living life with gusto. Running here and there, investigating and engaging in everything around him. There's no halfway for him - either fully awake or fully crashed.

I'm reading "Meet Me at the Well" by Virelle Kidder, a book I noticed in my bookclub offerings. The subtitle got me 'Take a Month and Water Your Soul'. So I'm doing that during the month of April, after a jam-packed winter. Summer promises to be full of home repairs, yard work, etc so I decided to coast just a bit in April, although my version of coast likely isn't anything that would make you jealous. Paint all the baseboards and doors in the house white, paint the two bathrooms neutral linen, go through all my clothing to sort and toss, and do some spring cleaning of those areas that generally get a lick and a promise. It's the Bev-version of 'coasting'.

In a chapter titled, "Would it be so bad to run away?" Virelle suggests 'two therapies that worked wonders' for restoration. Sleep and laughter.

She suggests I imitate my grandson Landon, and sleep with gusto. Take a nap daily, between twenty and thirty minutes, and a decent night's sleep, preceeded by something funny on TV or a light-hearted book (while avoiding the news), piling in bed with a snack and some tea, snuggling up under nice sheets and a comforter in a pleasant, peaceful bedroom, and sleeping 'like a baby'.

She even suggests I 'walk a wider circle around those whose regular conversations pull you under when you're paddling hard to keep your head above water'. That's certainly food for thought.

DH had a last minute trip out of town come up, so I'm starting today with painting myself out to the garage, putting a fresh coat on the basement stairs, then taking a break by going to open knitting for a bit. Back home to paint DH's bathroom, then by gosh and by golly, I'm going to grab that new Mitford book, curl up on the sofa, and drift off for ten or twenty minutes. Much better than completely running away.

I want to feel refreshed like Landon does, ready to grab life, and everything around me. Surprisingly, that's going to involve an adult version of curling up with a wubbie for just a bit.

Labels: Glimpse of the Heart