Monday Memories—A Title Escapes Me

Wait…wait! When I mentioned Calvin didn’t want to be one second late to the ballgame in the previous post, I meant he didn’t want to be one second over three hours early!

Time warps for me badly. I can sit down to write at the computer and think I’ve been there ten minutes and find an hour gone, and I swear sleeping for eight hours does not feel like a whole work day has passed. I once read that clocks are man made images and therefore should not be worshipped. The author said it in jest, but it appears I soaked it in and avoid time like a curse. Which reminds me . . .

I went to Brigham Young University—Hawaii for my first semester of college and had Sister Swapp as my health teacher. I loved her. She repaired her broken eye glasses with a band-aid, wore large-flowered, bright colored clothing and was pragmatic but cheerful. She assigned each of us a partner. Mine was Hoe Sei Sing from Singapore. He was about six inches shorter than me and made me laugh.

Sister Swapp taught us a relaxation technique lying on mats on the gym floor. We lay motionless as she quietly called: “Flex the muscles in your toes. Hold it. Hold it. Hold it. Hold it. Reeeellllaaaaax. Now flex the muscles in your feet. Hold it. Hold it. Hold it. Reeeellllaxxxxx. Now flex the muscles in your ankles . . .” Up and up the body she’d go. Hoe Sei Sing told me she went all the way to our brains, but I was always out cold long before then.

One afternoon we were walking to the gym to practice our relaxation technique when Hoe Sei Sing said in a choppy, Chinese lilt, “It is so embarrassing. You always go to sleep and when she tells us to do something with our partner I am the only one who doesn’t have one. And . . . you snore.” Hoe, hoe, hoe. I promised to try harder to stay awake (one time I woke up to a people-less, dark, empty gym).

I learned lots of useful things in college, but that relaxation technique was the best sleeper move on little kids who fought naps. After reading our book, we did one of two exercises:

1. If the kids held still for five minutes and kept their eyes closed “quiet time” would only last for five minutes. If they opened their eyes, the time started all over. Stop a little body’s movement for five minutes and it was out. Of course, given my time warp five minutes may or may not have been 300 seconds.

2. Sister Swapp’s relaxation technique. Lying next to them on the bed, we’d flex our muscles from toe to head. It reminded me of Shel Silverstein’s poem, I’m Being Eaten by a Boa Constrictor.

Thank you, Sister Swapp. Flexing and resting next to those sweet, sweaty little bodies is still a very, very fond memory. It was time well-spent.

Ty, Cali, Abe

(Sorry, Ande. You don't join us in naps for another year, but I loved taking naps with you too. Especially because you’d always find the soft material on my shirt and rub it between your fingers as you fell sleep.)