Friday, March 25, 2011

Blissing Out

To truly rest. I have not rested or felt deeply rested in a long time. "Rested" in the sense that you want to get up and out because you cannot sleep anymore, you need action. I last felt this way after a stay at Hoshi onsen in the Gunma Prefecture in Japan. There was nothing to do there but eat, sleep, bathe, soak in the hot waters of the onsen, read, drink green tea, eat mekons, and run about in the snow for a bit with the munsters. We did this for three days. the munsters were not as enthralled with this place as I was, but I loved it. I slept so much and read and read. It was glorious. It was well over a year ago that we went there.

Yesterday, my dad took a day off from work and hauled us all off to a park in Milton by Blackwater River. It was warm and breezy. The water sparkled. The sky was clear. The sun was on my back. The park had lots of playground equipment and sand. The munsters and I ended up playing in the sand for a long time. The sand was warm. It felt like a moment of respite. My parents didn't seem to understand our interest in the sand with all of the playground equipment at hand, but it couldn't compete with the physicality of the sand running through our hands and the warmth of the sun. I could have blissed out. It really doesn't take much to get to this place, but it is amazing how rarely I go there.

Without electricity you concentrate on essentials. It simplifies your life in a way that having the grid does not. Everyone has to gather in the same room. Without lots of lights and gadgets you go to bed earlier. Mmm, maybe since I do have a lithium battery in my ipad that is not entirely true, but at least there is no negotiation about staying up to watch TV or listening to one more audiobook.

Perhaps with simplification, whether living out of a suitcase at my parent's house or coping through a spring and summer of rolling blackouts in Japan, I will go more often to this simple place of rest, read, and eat.

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