Rituals of Relaxation

I had a really great weekend, full of relaxation. More on the specifics in another post. One of the things that I was reminded of at lunch with some friends, though, is how important it is to me to have rituals of relaxation. Not just time to goof off or relax, but some form of relaxation that I do regularly, usually with friends.

In college this ritual included Frisbee Golf and Bojangles. My close friends and I would frequently get up Saturday morning, eat some cereal and watch cartoons until we were awake enough to function (approx 10am). We would head out to a nearby frisbee golf course, trash talk each other while wailing our discs into the nearest tree (not what we were intending to do, I assure you), and just enjoy the outdoors on a pretty southern spring or fall day. After about 2 hours we would finish up and head to Bojangles.

Now for those with the misfortune not to have eaten at Bojangles, let me describe this briefly. Bojangles is a fried chicken joint in the same vein as KFC or Popeye's. The difference is that Bojangles is better. First of all the fried chicken is noticeably spicier (and therefore better). Second, the fries, while nothing that interesting by themselves, come covered with a cajun salt seasoning that is to die for. If you ask nicely you can shake on as much as you want, and you should shake on plenty. Of course, you need a very buttery biscuit to tame your mouth afterwards, which is kindly provided with all meals, and by then you're parched. Sweet tea to the rescue. Bojangles has the gold standard of sweet tea, with as many refills as you can stomach. If you haven't had sweet tea before, it's just good old fashioned hot tea, poored over ice, and sugar added until the sugar stops desolving; in other words, super-saturated sugar-tea. mmmmm.

So you can see why after a meal at Bojangles, esp after the physical activity and emotional stress (remember, trash talking) of frisbee golf, well, we would often take naps on Sat. afternoons. Once rested we would in some months of the year end up at a Duke Basketball game.

So *that* is a ritual of relaxation. It wasn't just a one-time event. Or 2 times. It was *all* the time. ahhhh. It's refreshing just to remember it.

Even now I have some rituals of relaxation, although none are quite so extensive, nor quite so likely to shorten my life by a decade or two. Recently Sophia and I have been going to breakfast on most Saturday mornings. We either go to a diner near-by, or a coffee shop, but we order breakfast, coffee, and sit and talk. It's a super way to start the weekend, first because it's delicious, and second because Soph and I get a chance to catch up on the week, process a bit, then jointly figure out what we're going to do with our weekend. It's awesome. In the last few weeks we've added joint scripture memorization to the ritual as well. That's been cool since I don't actually have that much scripture memorized, and it gives us something to do together.