Naps (Or, the Reason I Fail to Write)

There is something I want to write about, but it needs to bloom and ripen before it will come.

Stretching, I leave the computer and search for Justin.  He is watching a soccer match in the living room, but his eyes are closed and his hat is bobbing.  I wrap myself in a quilt and burrow under his arm on the couch.  He repositions without a protest, and together we are warm and soft. 

Through my eyelashes, the living room windows show me a movie about the changing of a Japanese maple and the dulling of a cloudy afternoon sky.  It has an original soundtrack of soccer fans, chanting and rolling like waves from the television speakers, and how they all know the roar and tune of their indistinct battle cry makes me wonder about propaganda and patriotism. 

My shoulder is wedged into his side, but Justin's breathing is slow and deep.  My foot trips over a buried root and I feel the weight of an arm pressing against my hip and I remember: there is something I want to write about.  But as I call the notion forward, the heater kicks on and a warm balloon of air brushes my eyelashes and it's Justin's exhale. 

Then, inexplicably, it's not about soccer or Japanese maples or even about floor to ceiling windows; it's about a trampoline with a purple sunrise and the sound of a bell ringing just a note shy of dinner time.  It's about the fireplace tipping over into the living room and turning into a skyscraper, and a pair of giggling birds racing to their perch overlooking the carpet of fallen leaves below.  There is a moon and a raindrop and even a missing sock, or maybe a missing mitten, but they look the same, so I'll never be sure. 

And when my shoulder is completely asleep from the odd angle of this cuddle, I snap my eyes open.  I should not be dozing. 

There is something I wanted to write about.