This morning I rise to an awareness of the future changing.

My daughter and son-in-law travel towards us, back in time from Iceland to Canada, from Toronto to Calgary.

The girls, giggly and buzzing with energy, move from room to room, exploring their world anew, picking up toys and books, putting them down. I look around at the tasks before me; sorting, putting away, cleaning, polishing. A sense of not-now descends. Like a pebble falling into a deep pool of water, I settle with a cup of coffee nestled between my hands. Such comfort, this morning ritual.

I sit in a comfy chair, the sun through the front window projects the shadow of a huge lilac tree onto the floor, the side of the couch. Squirrel shadows jump from trunk to trunk. Athena, full-bellied, sleeps. Tom reads the news on his phone. I remember when this ritual included a newspaper made of newsprint.

I remember back and back to when I was small, my mother’s Maxwell House instant coffee, evaporated milk, and a spoon of sugar ritual. I remember sitting with her while she read the newspaper. Me, with the comics. I feel a warm belly recalling this memory. Comfort. Ease.

Sloane tells me her favourite time of day is sleeping time. Falling into rest. I can relate, more and more to looking forward to night journeys. As I wake, images and symbols come to me and a sense of comfort remains. Gratitude fills me.

This morning ritual of sitting with coffee and the weather of the day is becoming an extension of the night journey. A space of time between sleep and “doing”, a time of “being”.

I wonder when I will add a late afternoon nap to my routine? I wonder if we all, like I did in Kindergarten and Grade One, would benefit from a quiet time, breathing with awareness of the stillness inside?

Tricia Hersey, founder of The Nap Ministry, writes:

This is about more than naps. This is about more than naps. This is about more than naps.
This has been my battle cry and mantra since I created the “Rest is Resistance” framework in 2016. I begin experimenting with rest as a tool for my own liberation and healing in 2013. It has always been about more than taking a full nap. My rest as a Black woman in America suffering from generational exhaustion and racial trauma always was a political refusal and social justice uprising within my body. I took to rest and naps and slowing down as a way to save my life, resist the systems telling me to do more and most importantly as a remembrance to my Ancestors who had their DreamSpace stolen from them. This is about more than naps. It is not about fluffy pillows, expensive sheets, silk sleep masks or any other external, frivolous, consumerist gimmick. It is about a deep unraveling from white supremacy and capitalism. These two systems are violent and evil. History tells us this and our present living shows this. Rest pushes back and disrupts a system that views human bodies as a tool for production and labor. It is a counter narrative. We know that we are not machines. We are divine.

Slowing down. Resting. Waking up to a slow routine, a quiet remembering, may change our lives. How do we make room for quiet? for stillness? What do we do as individuals, couples, families, communities to connect with stillness?