Soak it in

My comprehension of what it means to rest and care for myself has developed a lot over the past two years. With so many lifestyle changes during intermittent lockdowns, I’ve come to know intimately about my own tendencies to take on too many tasks, too excited by a flurry of creative ideas with little time to execute them.My days spent flitting from task to task, attempting to make a dent in my to-do list, from morning to evening. This prevented me not only from fully resting, but also in giving each task my full attention,

Looking back, I would often draw on the rhetoric we’ve all heard bandied around in conversations about work and productivity. The belief that taking time for ourselves is a regenerative task for the purpose of efficiency. I regularly hear from my dates, my friends, and my family how busy they are and how they are counting down the days to rest in the hope they can hit their desks with a renewed vigour. A vigour that is persistently out of reach.

I want to push beyond the idea that downtime is an actionable task. Instead, I want to acknowledge that it’s enough to rest for rest’s sake. And that putting limits and pressure on the time we gift to ourselves - doing the things we truly find rejuvenating - in order to improve work ethic is less than we all deserve.

We each deserve to revel in fulfilling our needs and desires, in checking in with ourselves and what would make our bodies and minds feel good, and - if accessible - giving it to ourselves for no motive other than to show love to ourselves. To submerge ourselves in care.

For me, this often takes the form of a stroll down a stream local to me. I take a book - most recently the brilliant A Ghost in the Throat by Doireann Ní Ghríofa, gifted to me by a kind client - and I sit on an old brick wall beside the stream. I turn pages until my hands are so numb from the winter’s cold breath that I need to return home again for the warmth. I don’t watch the clock, I don’t check my phone. I don’t do anything other than read and listen to the variety of sounds around me: the cascade of the stream on rocks; the animals snapping twigs nearby; the aeroplanes flying overheard.

It can also look like losing myself when I’m stroking someone else’s hair. Their head on my chest and our limbs still entwined from our activities between sheets. When running my nails along their scalp, gently brushing my fingertips across their forehead, massaging their temples, I fall into a trance-like state. Time becomes immeasurable, my to-do list inconceivable, and my mind is still. Empty of any thoughts.

I cherish my moments spent in the bath too. I’ve always had a thing for baths. Stripping off my clothes to step into the tub, my naked body covered only with a body of liquid and the ceramic curves of the bath, the steam rising from my skin as I wash. It feels like a form of self-worship, wiping a soaped-up loofah across each inch of my pale skin; gently assessing myself, caring for myself. And while I revel in being submerged in that hot water - how it looks almost silken from bath oil - what attracts me the most is the simultaneous feelings of concealment and exposure when a lover is present in the same room.

There is a vulnerability in being watched by a date when I’m bathing myself,. He’s fully dressed, sat on a chair nearby. My exhibitionist side laps it up, and I feel a pull as I start to get wet - this time not from the bath water. I open my legs, exposing myself and lock eyes with my date. There’s no missing the effect this has on him. Naturally, it emboldens me. My hand starts to trail down my body, caressing at my breasts, tugging ever so gently on my pert nipples. He leans forward, he wants to be closer. He’s still too far.

My finger tips are between my thighs now, tracing the outside of my lips. I’m teasing myself. But no more than I’m teasing him. Our eyes still locked, my middle finger finds my clit. The intensity of it drives my gaze upwards, my head thrown back. against the bath’s rim. I hear a shuffle, the legs of the chair scrape. By the time I raise my head, I feel his hot hand bat mine away to cup me –