the siesta cure.

in the january-february 2004 issue of utne, you will find an article that appeared in alternative medicine called "the siesta cure" by ann japenga (it's not available online, though some of the articles in the feature are here. if you want a copy, email me and i'll send you a scanned pdf.). it is introduced with this:

"canadian humorist stephen leacock once wrote, 'americans are a queer people; they can't rest.' and that's hard to deny. while our get-things-done mentality has fostered incredible imagination and productivity, it also makes us exhausted and often sick. we're wearing ourselves out. with overused soil and overfished seas, we're also wearing out the earth. rest seems a healthy prescription all the way around... ."
— the editors

i just happened to pick up the magazine and couldn't believe how serendipitous this really was. the last two years of my life, i have been scrambling - mostly aimlessly - at what i really want to do with my life. i suppose it's a bit of depression mixed with anxiety. or maybe it's like my friend's therapist said - we're at a stage in our lives where saturn, the "great equalizer" in astrology, is wreaking havoc. i have a business that is not thriving and no matter how hard i tried, nothing seemed to make it better. i would rack my brain over how to fix things - how to improve them - how to just make sense of all the messiness that was my life. sitting in front of my computer just hopelessly struggling on how to improve this or that or everything. and getting more and more frustrated by the day.

last month around the holidays, i decided to just rest. i let go completely. i stopped having this internal debate with myself about how to mend things that just wouldn't be mended. for christmas, my mom got me knitting materials, so i knitted. i read. i cleaned. i organized. i was productive for the first time in a long time. instead of being manic, i decided to relax and let things be.

i started listening more, looking more. taking breaks. walking with presence of mind. appreciating small things i always considered cliché. like watching the waves. feeling crisp, cold wind on my face. watching dolphins. sitting down. playing with my dog. listening to the kids walk to and from school. it sounds so utterly lame, but here i was enjoying it. it was like my mind was free again.

and that's when i started to feel something. i felt glad again for the first time in a long time. i felt like there was hope. like there was possibility. a felt a little bit stronger.

it's not like i believe things will fix themselves, but i have decided to let things work out as they may in a relaxed fashion. it's kind of like my sabbatical year i guess. i still have difficulty sleeping and sometimes, difficulty getting up, but i feel like i am a more productive member of the household, of the business now that my head is a little bit clearer.

i'm not sure where this is leading, but luckily and thankfully, my partner is supportive and encourages me to go and "find my dream."

maybe all i needed was a little siesta.

for ideas on rest, see david kundtz's book, "stopping: how to be still when you have to keep going."