The Great Escape: A Worry-Free Nap

Car horns. Sirens. Rumbling trucks. More sirens. The muffled roar of passing traffic. I hear none of it, because I’ve nodded off while sitting on my balcony. If someone had asked me if I could nap for an hour in a chair some 13 stories high above the noisy city streets, I would have said absolutely not.                                    

But I did. Fortunately, I had on a wide-brimmed sun hat and a long-sleeved cotton shirt, protection prompted by a recent visit to the dermatologist, who had "tsk-tsked" about past sun damage to my skin. 

I’d stepped out on the balcony to get away from my desk, where I’d been working for about two hours. I was alert, ready to breathe deep and relax outside in the balmy 68-degree July weather. (Thank you, San Francisco, for your Mediterranean climate, which suits me so perfectly.) 

Relaxing these days, for me, often requires first banishing fear, anger, frustration, disappointment and a whole litany of other disturbing mindsets that are always alert for opportunities to command my attention. 

My maternal grandmother’s approach to achieving calm was to turn to the “Serenity Prayer,” Reinhold Niebuhr’s dictum asking God for “the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.” She had a ballpoint pen with that prayer inscribed on it. When my mother died, I found the pen in her purse, and now it’s in my desk drawer.

                                              

When I think about those words, usually I can think of something specific I can do to help in many situations, but sometimes I get stuck on how to determine what I can’t change or affect in any way. That’s how I came to settle on briefly reviewing and then banishing issues that trouble me, at least for a while.  

Most often, I begin by thinking, “You do not live in Ukraine, so all your worries are small.” Then I flag that second part as false, because I worry about the war in Ukraine, which is no small thing. I wonder why the international community allows the pointless loss of life to drag on, but I know that this is too big for me to fix. 

I worry about the many (too many) individuals in the U.S. who remain in thrall to a shyster, a con man, a psychopath who was (and maybe still is) ready to sacrifice democracy at the altar of his bloated ego. I worry that this same man’s power grab has led to the theocracy we now live under, ruled by people who insist that we all must believe exactly as they believe. 

What can I do? Well, I sat out the Fourth of July, because as a woman in the U.S., I don’t feel free. Also, I can — and I will — vote, and through the non-partisan Vote Forward campaign, I can encourage others to do the same.  

I worry about our legislators and business leaders who care so little for their own children and grandchildren that they take actions to accelerate the climate crisis. Greed drives those actions. How do they not see that no amount of money ever will justify destroying the planet? I also worry about white people so desperate to feel superior to everyone else that they use guns and laws to back up their absurd biases. That’s two more issues I can’t fix, though I can — and do — raise my voice. 

Mentally ill people, some of them armed, are allowed to live on San Francisco streets because a vocal segment of the population here says that is their right. I worry about that twisted thinking, just as I worry about the open-air drug dealing in a nearby neighborhood where children walk to school. I write letters to the mayor and my supervisor, though no satisfying answers are offered.                                                                    

The uncertainty surrounding COVID-19 — and the many mixed messages coming from experts and ignorant fools — concerns me a great deal. We seem to be at a point where everyone decides for themselves what level of risk they will take, and that does not appear to be working out all that well now that the new version of Omicron is with us. This, I can manage to a point, because I can wear a mask to protect my health when I feel at risk. 

When my fretting zeroes in on friends going through hard times with health crises or other causes of emotional overload, I can send a card with an encouraging word or make a call and offer to help. (Locally, I can even do a porch drop-off of fine chocolate, when requested.) When I want to help support a cause, though I have to leave the marching to younger people, I can send a wee bit of money.                                               

When I worry about how much I worry — the unexamined life is not for me — I search for moments of joy, among them a visit with my grandson, hummingbirds at the feeder, a report that a wildfire is under control, a call from a friend to say she’s baked a cake and wants to share a piece or two, a boat ride, listening to music I love, a fulfilling work assignment, a Giants baseball game that isn’t cringe-worthy, a book that keeps me up late and a juicy heirloom tomato.

And now I have another escape: a refreshing nap in the sun.