05: Letters From the Slow Lane

the power to stay in bed all morning

Letters from the Slow Lane are love letters to life and snippets of slow living inspiration. They will only show up in your inbox when a few have been published, otherwise, you can find them on Our Uncertain Future in the Slow Lane section. Links to the first four are below.

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Dear friends,

I love staying in bed on rainy mornings. I used to think my ability to stay in bed all morning was a superpower because I noticed that my husband and former roommates were never able to commit to the practice as deeply as I was. But I recently learned that it’s a common need for people with ADHD. I guess I was just tuned into it all along.

This morning, I opened my big eastern window beside my bed and watched the rain dampen the daisies, asters, adirondack chairs, and Subaru outside. I listened to the trickle and drips on my corrugated metal roof like a soothing steady intonation, imagining all the water gushing through my gutters and into my giant cisterns and all the days of free showers and laundry loads I could get from this one storm.

Lightning flashes overhead, immediately followed by a ground shaking dramatic thunder, and I think how wild it is that we live in a world with such weather. I can easily imagine how the early pagans believed the gods were angry. The sky is raucous with dueling atoms, smashing about above and everything is shrouded and gray squeezing the world in around my cozy little home where I am nestled under autumn quilts writing my morning pages.

Days like this are perfect for staying in bed. Coffee in bed. Reading in bed. Coloring in bed. Snuggling, of course.

All around the world, people waging wars, people farming rice paddies, people with ten-million super fans, people meditating in caves—everyone can relate to that feeling of a warm bed on a wet day. Even animals curled nose to tail in their dens, which is exactly what I am, an animal gazing out from my den, watching for the last bolt of lightning strike on sagebrush seas as I listen to all the water stored to gratify my daily thirst, collecting in reservoirs of upturned fallen leaves and rock bowl indentations.

In a moment, I’ll open the window to catch my favorite desert scent of wet sage and petrichor, only available after the rain. I’ll breathe in deep the sensation of our dry bones quenched, our parched skins moistened, our earth satiated. Ah, rain.

What about you? Do you like to stay in bed on rainy days?

Take it easy,

Johanna