Taking a Phlegm Day Off

I am grateful for phlegm. Yup, you read it right, phlegm. When most of us suddenly find ourselves back at the gym or working on our resolutions with gusto, thanks to my son, and his rolling ball of green phlegm, we've sitting in neutral; reading, watching videos and sipping on fruit shakes. A small part of me wishes I could invent some kind of vacuum that would suck the sickness out of him, especially when he wakes up in the night because his drool pooled around his face , but on the other hand, I appreciate the opportunity to slow down and do less. I'm going to call this, 'taking a phlegm day off.'

I think most of us have forgotten how to slow down, even in times when we're supposed to slow down, like when we're sick or on vacation, it seems we actually speed up: maximizing our time off to complete chores, fix the house, visit friends and family, and going out. But, by the Old English definition, the word vacation, means "rest and freedom from any activity." Rest and freedom from any activity, not taking a 10 hour red-eye flight to an exotic place, or cooking a ten course meal for family or shopping the crowded malls to get the best Boxing Day deals and rushing back to work to catch up on work that supposedly piled up while everyone else was also on holidays. No, not that.

Of course, you don't have to be sick to take a phlegm day off, you just have to imagine you live in a cabin in the woods without electricity, and let any of these slower activities slide into your day organically; sleeping in, reading in bed, napping, taking leisurely walks with no destination and no designated time to get back, eating whole foods with minimal cooking, any activity with pen and paper like drawing, crosswords, sudoku or writing a letter to a friend, drinking tea, or petting an animal. Do you remember the last time you had a real phlegm day?