I’ve recently decided that I will be the guy who tries any variety of wellness gizmo or fad at least once. If I had been an adult in 1958 there is zero chance I wouldn’t have bought a hula hoop and used it as a fat loss tool. There’s also a 100% chance I would have stopped using the hula hoop after a week. Two, tops. I thought about this gizmo attraction the other day while I was sitting in a wooden egg while coyotes howled and loons called. I had read about this egg contraption in an article somewhere, and decided on that cold day in February that it might be worth a try. $130 for an hour of listening to loons was supposedly going to re-set my nervous system. I don’t know that I need a re-set, but re-sets tend to be good, so why not? I thought about these things while inside that wooden egg, and instead of relaxing like the woman in the Temu medical scrubs instructed me, I thought about what my grandfathers would think of me. Shame, no doubt.
I thought about napping, because the medical-adjacent lady told me that was common and that I was welcome to do so. What a treat that might be to nap. The issue is I haven’t napped since 1987. I grew up in a napping household, where my father set a wonderful example of what it was to nap. He’d nap on the bed in our screened porch nearly every summer day. He’d even come home from teaching school and nap during his lunch break. His command of the nap was immaculate. A real napping all-star, he was. And is. If you stop at his house in the summer and it’s a warm day and it’s between the hours of 11 am and 3 pm, Kalshi would tell you there’s a 50.5% chance that he will be napping when you arrive. I thought about this while listening to the instrumental tones and the associated loon calls. My nervous system had still not re-set. I leaned into the noise, hoping if I focused on the loons something might improve.
But I thought more about my grandpas and how they didn’t think about their nervous systems. I thought about how they didn’t think about their mitochondria. I thought about how Leroy and George probably didn’t take very many naps. And if they did, they didn’t think twice about it. They didn’t try to nap because it was good for them. They didn’t think about what supplements to take and whether or not dairy was the issue. They just lived their lives and napped when they were tired. What a treat that would be! I thought about the loons again, and about my instructions which increasingly felt passive aggressive: Napping is encouraged.
I thought about the one good nap I’ve had in my entire life. It was summer and it was hot outside. The cicadas boomed, and I thought now how nice it was to not think then about whether or not this vibration was good for me. My window was open and the lake was busy. Was it a Saturday? I think it might have been. There was some family at the house, I think. Maybe my grandparents or my aunt and uncle. Or maybe one of my dad’s cousins had stopped for a porch visit and a swim. I was in my bed on top of my covers staring at the ceiling, with the sounds of summer all around me and the heat of a summer day spilling into our unconditioned second floor. I took a nap that afternoon, and it was so divine that I remember it to this day. I thought about that nap and thought about my grandparents and thought about those summers of my childhood. And then I opened my eyes and saw the purple LED light washing over the interior of this wooden egg in which I was sitting and I heard the calls of the loon and the strum of the harp and I thought about how much better things were before I ever thought about the health of my mitochondria.