SLEEP, SWEET SLEEP

I can't get through the day with out a nap -- or caffeine. It's not normal! I told my Chinese doctor in desperation a few months back. Well, she said, actually it is. What if I told you that most of the world naps, every day. That the doctors in the large, busy hospital in Beijing where I worked before coming here, they napped, every afternoon. 15-20 minutes. Some just laid there heads right down on a table and slept. 

Ah, so maybe the cure for my 'chronic afternoon fatigue' is not yet another expensive supplement or exotic powder from the co-op for 'maxed out adrenals' but simply, to sleep, sweet sleep. 

So, I did. I have let myself take time out to simply rest. For a while now, I have just given into this overwhelming urge to rest in the afternoon. Mama's doing yoga nidra for the next 30 minutes - the kids know to be quiet - the cats don't get to come in. My thick, no-light-can-get-through drapes from Ikea are drawn, eye pillow - and then, yoga nidra. Yogic Sleep. Because that makes me nap almost instantly. It's a guided meditation, rotating my consciousness around my body and the funny thing is, it's very much like the guided meditation my grandmother would use to make my sister and me sleep when we were kids and would sleep over in her awesome feather beds. Relax your big toe, she would say, then your second toe, your third toe, your...your...zzzzzzz - and somewhere on the journey through our bodies, we'd be out. I don't know where she got this idea but it worked like a charm every time.

It's become even more important that I take the time to nap after I have added several evening classes to my teaching schedule, it gives me that second wind and when I avoid the caffeine/chocolate temptation then I still fall asleep like a baby by 10 or 10:30PM. 

I realize that my particular schedule allows for napping, many of my students are working in office settings where taking a snooze at 3:30PM is a definite non-option, so instead they resort to caffeine or just spacing out - checking out mentally and not getting much done anyway while managing to look reasonably productive. I know, I have been there. 

Maybe I won't always need to incorporate naps, maybe my adrenals really are depleted or my heart and body just strung out from post-divorce-making-it-on-my-own-in-a-foreign-country-stress. But for now, I nap, as often as I need to and just count on my body to tell me when it isn't tired anymore, at 3:30PM - speaking of which, it's now 3:45PM and sure enough, I am just wanting to conclude this little blog entry so I can go snooze and be ready and rested for a little evening thing at 7PM. 

If you are like me, and need a bit of help dozing off in the afternoon, then this Yoga Nidra CD is guaranteed to help you. Just don't have caffeine right before you 'nidra'. 

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THE LEAST OF MY BRETHREN

"Can I buy your apple. I will give you a Dollar for it. I haven't had anything to eat. I am really hungry." The man who wanted my apple appeared out of nowhere and spoke very fast to me.

I was walking in my own little world, between classes today, munching on this apple before teaching another class in the dodgy end of South Minneapolis.  I had already made my way almost half way through this apple. The man looked disheveled. "Are you serious," I said, "you want to eat my half-eaten apple?" He assured me that he really did. I gave it to him, wishing so bad that I'd had another, a fresh un-bitten apple in my purse, but I didn't.

I walked away, leaving the man with my apple. He was already busy eating what was left of it.

Personally, I'd say that I might eat a half-eaten apple left by one of my children. But that's it. I wouldn't even eat my mom's half eaten apple let alone the half-eaten apple of a random stranger. Or maybe I would. If I were hungry enough. Downtrodden enough. Believing enough that begging for a half-eaten apple is what it takes to get an apple.

After class I got in my car to drive home, sweet home, in my safe neighborhood where my kids were waiting for me to cook them burgers but as I sat in a bit of traffic by the Franklin entrance to E94, I noticed an older man next to a shopping cart that held a couple of dirty, ragged blankets. He was wearing a prominent cross around his neck and looked completely resigned. No card board sign asking for money, stating the obvious: homeless, poor, forgotten by society. Just sitting there alone by his shopping cart.

I rolled down my window and I reached into my purse and told my fingers to pick the right bill. I knew I had 1's, 5's, 10's and 20's in there. My fingers picked a $10 - I was a bit relieved it wasn't a $20 because $20 felt like a lot - he hobbled over and I gave him the bill. He just stood there and looked and held my gaze in a way that made me want to cry my heart out for the state of the United States where people live like this, right under our noses, where we are debating whether minimum wage should be a living wage or not or whether people like this man should receive food stamps or not.

Then he sat back down by his cart and pulled out a pill bottle, opened it up and took out a slim roll of bills, 1's from what I could see, and he added the $10 bill to the roll. I wanted to change my mind and do it over. I wanted to give him a $20 or more, or make him some food, or find him a place to live. But then the car behind me honked and I rolled onto the freeway and I drove back to my home where I cooked burgers for my kids.

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