The Day The Doctor Ordered

The clock said 8:32 when I rolled over.  I can’t remember the last time I awoke with numbers higher than six on the bedside clock.  I swiped my eyeglasses off the table, took a swig of water, and padded down the hall to the balcony.

She was already settled into one of the comfy chairs watching the clouds overhead and the waves crash against the shore from our bird’s eye view.  Her books sat on the side table with a mug of hot chocolate (how am I friends with someone who doesn’t adore coffee?!?).

I drank a bottomless mug of coffee as we sat outside listening to the music of the waves.  We ate a pile of scrambled eggs before heading out on our adventure for the day.

I already felt so intensely rested, so rare is it to get ten hours of uninterrupted sleep, that the laughter and exploration which followed served only to deepen the feeling of being completely unwound (in the absolute best sense).

We popped into a post office where the clerk found us more roadshow characters than normal patrons (her exact words were, “y’all are entertaining…”).  We wandered around an affluent oceanfront town where I fell in LOVE with the local bookshop.  I couldn’t stop buying from their perfectly curated collection even though I realized there was no way all my treasures would fit in my suitcase home.

We ate gelato outside (I gave myself a diet pass this weekend!) and popped into local boutiques to unearth unique fashion treasures (only to find more folly than fashion, which in and of itself was fabulously entertaining).  I ordered that we stop at the ridiculous tourist trap only because the Snappy Turtle made me laugh.

On our way home, we shopped our favorite stores in the local outlet center and came home with deeply discounted fall treasures.  Thankfully, and for only this reason, we live so far apart, otherwise we’d end up making “twinky” appearances in our matching black and white animal print cardigans or deep blue bird blouses.

We found a seafood restaurant on the water and ate fresh fish for dinner as the clouds lifted enough to give us glimpse of the sunset show we knew would come the following day.

We finally arrived back to our condo at dark and unloaded our packages and collapsed in front of our computers to write the stories in our heads (the joy of traveling with a fellow writer).

It was the day the doctor ordered.

I had no preconceived notions of what to expect on this trip except for seeing a dear friend.  I couldn’t imagine how much rest I would find.  I didn’t realize how long it had been since I had laughed all day long and done super silly things like pose by a roadside turtle.  Even failing to get much writing done worked out in the end because I loved every minute of living my life instead of writing about it.

I’m so thankful for these windows of rest and light and goodness sandwiched in between the busyness and pressure of living and working in modern America.  I’m leaving on a fully charged battery ready to tackle what lies ahead.