nap time

so, here on the ship, it isn't uncommon among the staff to ask your friends if they'd be willing to guest blog on your blog, so that your loved ones back home can have some spice in their reading lives. my friend jason (the bookstore, not the nomad for those of you who are keeping track out there...which basically only means my mother) is a proud guest blog whore, and therefore was kind enough to write one for me. he's an author by trade (well, maybe not by trade, but close enough), so enjoy the read...oh, and just for the record, i have had a four nap day once.

thoughts by jason:

I used to think that, after the age of about ten and before the age of about 60, there was something a little shameful, a little too lazy, in taking naps. In the heat of a summer afternoon, maybe. After Thanksgiving Dinner, surely. But as a general, day to day affair, they were strictly not allowed. One got as much sleep as one could in the night, and then if it wasn't enough, one just suffered. Where in the busy day could you put a nap anyway?

Semester at Sea has proven me wrong. It's always nap time here. Do you have an extra hour after lunch? Take a nap. Finished with dinner early? The six o clock nap works, as well. Skipping Global Studies? That's an hour and a half of prime nap time. And this can be either instead of regular sleep, or just as often, in addition to.

We greet each other in the halls, looking a little sleepy, and someone will ask, “Did you get a nap?” to which the proudest answer is, “I got three.” Three seems to be both the goal and the limit. I've never heard of a four nap day, though I'm sure they're out there. Someone has surely had that much free time. Total, those naps are probably two hours, maybe three. We're all getting expert at setting alarms for forty five minutes later. We have to change the time so much there's no mystery at all to any of the functions of travel alarms.

And we get all these naps around our schedule. Meetings, work, committees, classes, whatever it may be, nothing can stop the nap. Some days maybe there's no nap, but it doesn't really feel like a day. Even in port there's nap time; a long bus ride, or even a short one, can send people snoring for their forty winks.

I don't know how I'll adjust to the non-nap world now. I suppose it'll be easier in some ways; the ground doesn't rock gently where I normally live, and some of the tiredness comes from mild seasickness. But the naps aren't just about conditions around us. They're a form of freedom that most of us don't have in the real world, a drowsy, dreamy escape from everything, for fifteen minutes or three hours. I'd like to take them with me, pack them up in my bags and sneak them through customs, but I think the agents there are on the alert for nappers, for anyone who might interfere with the go getting American paradigm. Maybe I can claim a few as souvenirs, though. Just a nap here or there. Just a few minutes.

Three times a day, preferably.