Soul Rest

The view I wanted to want.

The sun, hot and bright in a cloudless sky. The walls bleached white or whispering versions of brighter colors by light or salt and all I wanted was a bit of sun and the possible retreat of shade. Shade, the great gift in southern Portugal where the sun feels amazing until it doesn’t. Where the breeze is a better air conditioner than any environmentally degrading contraption human’s have created.

I sat on the roof of my hostel, a place designed for just such lounging. Bed/couches line the walls on the roof. Wrought iron tables and succulents and other plants coveting and receiving the sun. The only thing missing is a hammock. Short of that, the fig tree offering a smattering of shade based on the position of the sun and the clothes line waving a collection of colorful clothing items, flags in the wind.

I wanted to want to go to the beach.

I wanted to want to sit on the sand and when the heat overcame me go running with abandon into the frigid blue water.

I hadn’t expected the chill of the water. I expected a gentle cooling. A cooling that after a few moments recedes in the memory and is simply the temperature. I was expecting the water off the coast of Croatia. Water where I had to be brazen to submerge myself but once submerged, I could mock myself for all of the theatrics it took to get me in. But no, this water reminds me it is cold even once I've dunked myself, the huge waves splashing carelessly against my torso. It felt a bit like floating in a glass filledwith wayward ice cubes.

I wanted to want that. I wanted to want to gaze at the magnificent cliffs that are said to dot the shore here if you walk in the right direction.

What I actually did.

I wanted to want that.

But all I really wanted was to sit and read and lounge in the sun and eat and sleep.

I wanted to want to write. I'd been so diligent in the last weeks, writing in the morning before marching off into the streets of whatever city I'm in. but yesterday wasn’t that day. Yesterday wasn’t a day of doing any thing I “should” do. Yesterday was not a day where I could convince myself to be responsible or guilt myself into “proper” behavior.

That is the beauty and the challenge of traveling alone. The freedom to do just exactly what I want to to do. The absence of any judgment save my own.

I remember arriving in Cappadocia, Turkey and excitedly planning for a pre-dawn balloon ride over the strange and phallic rock formations that are famous in the region.

That was it. That was all I had planned for the day.

When I returned to my hotel only a short time after the sun had escaped the horizon and shone still gently on the city, I didn’t come up with any other plans. In that case, I didn’t even want to want to do anything else. I had my eye on a hammock and I had a book I was more than ready to pretend I'd be reading.

Yesterday was a day like that. A day where as I sit here trying to recount what I accomplished or what memorable thing I experienced, leaves me with my head cocked to the side and nothing of interest for anyone.

Except…

Except, I think there is a place for a day like yesterday. I think there is a place like a string of days like yesterday. Days where I am not doing anything. Not even wandering. Days where I am replenishing my stores in a different way. In a sloth-like way.

Lagos as the sun sets.

So yesterday was a day like that. It isn’t my first and it won’t be my last.

Sometimes it is health that demands such a day of rest. But that isn’t exactly the same thing. The body demanding its due...”pay unto Caesar what is Caesar's” and all of that. The body isn’t one to let debt accumulate for too long before demanding payment in some form. So spending a languishing day in bed when my body demands it isn’t the same as spending a languishing day in bed when my brain demands it...or my soul. Their demand is less tangible. Easier to ignore. Easy to talk myself out of but no less important on its impact and benefits. The calm. The creativity. The healing.

So, yesterday I lay about the hostel napping and reading and gazing out into the horizon of buildings and hills and ocean and sun.

And today...today I'll see what the soul demands. And as much as I'm able, I'll give it.