I’m so tired today. I don’t want to read, to think, to move. I want to sleep somewhere with just a candle for light, a spicy smell and a warm, soft blanket.

All week I’ve barely woken. Perhaps the rain and the cold? Perhaps just a function of these last weeks of work?

I have the sense that these are the last seconds of some long sleep; a sleep that one holds onto whilst nevertheless irrevocably awakening. Even though the new day holds no fear, sleep is delicious. It does not matter that being awake is normally even more enticing.

It constantly amazes me how much just a little sleep can improve the day.

All morning I felt sluggish, bored, tired and a little jumpy. By 11 I had a headache and wasn’t sure I was going to make it until quitting time. So at lunch time I went out to get a coffee and then climbed in the back seat of my car, safely stashed the coffee for later consumption, and drew the blanket up over my head, immediately plummeting into sleep. I woke up some 20 minutes later and felt like I’d slept for hours. I stretched a bit, drank my coffee and headed back to work.

I felt fine all afternoon, so I decided to take advantage of the remaining light at quitting time and walk over to the bookstore. Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion in hand, I sat in the park and read and felt completely fine, still rested and in no pain.

If I had to guess, what naps like that do for me is allow the stress to just drop away, but whatever it is that transforms, I am glad for it.