Une Envie de Sel

Remember when you were a child, and you used to make a tent of the covers at naptime, letting the sleepy afternoon light filter through the coverlet like a scrim? Remember the drowsy comfort of that private world, more secret, more luxurious, more delightfully safe than anyplace else in the world?

I never take naps anymore. Since bringing our daughter home, we have found our rhythm and fallen into it. My husband naps regularly. He works harder than anyone I know, and he suffers from lack of sleep. He needs it. But I have found that I can survive on less sleep. I desperately need our daughter's nap times in order to get my work done in the studio. So naps are a luxury I've sacrificed, and willingly.
But it has been a particularly difficult and exhausting couple of weeks for us. My mother just got to town yesterday, and my husband had a major presentation last night. Today, I found myself unable to go another day without a nap. So I gave in to a rare luxury.
As soon as I pulled the duvet over my head, and saw the afternoon light filter through, that old childhood feeling came over me... and I gave into it.
I lay on the surface of sleep for as long as I could, just watching the light filter through as it shifted across the room, listening to the birds in the hedges outside my window, and the bees in the flowerbeds, and...enjoying. Sigh.