Nicole feels

Since the dawning of my adulthood, Sundays have seemed the perfect nap day.

This began with muggy Sunday afternoons in a southern town, tucked away in a tiny apartment, the a/c barely on as to save those few extra pennies. Sprawled about a brass bed, limbs intertwined as one succumbs to blissful rest after loving as only young newlyweds still fresh to one another do.

Then there were the baby days, a young mother curling her body gently around her sweet, sleeping child after nursing him, dozing into the evening twilight. A gentle awakening as tiny hand explores mother�s cheek and grabs a hold of her nose!

Toddler and preschool days brought hurried snatches of rest, a seeming race to see if one could really steal an hour of sleep before tousled heads and bare feet pitter-pattered into the darkened room with �I�m hungry!� and �Nap all done!� A mother�s keener senses alerted to sounds in and out of the house, precipitating a father�s purchase of a box of sounds, which, to his and her chagrin was found wanting (�but I can hear things when the waves recede!�).

Busy grown-up days of cookouts and football and board games and car pools replaced this time of respite for a while. The laughter of those days still echoes in the mind with that fond melancholy one has of seasons past, purposes fulfilled.

And now the lazy, muggy Sunday afternoons have returned. A different state, a different bed. The woman, now older, wiser, need only draw the shades and close her eyes to feel 19 again.

Could it really be 15 years gone by now? Curly long blonde hair has given way to a more coiffed look; the face has matured, the body rearranged itself in ways she is none too pleased with.

The years have marched on without anyone's permission, as time is wont to do. No more babies to cuddle, no more toddlers napping. The cookout and football crew are miles and miles away. And her other half is hours away too, grown-up responsibilities necessitating plane rides and rental cars and hotel rooms.

She lays her head on the pillow, as she always has, but no passionate embrace, no subsequent spooning this time. She dozes anyway � it�s Sunday, after all. Why miss the stolen sweetness of a quiet afternoon?

As sleep envelops her, a warm blanket falling down upon her, she remembers - not as one who participated, but more as an observer - those sprawling, intertwining days. And she realizes she misses those most of all.