http://writing201july2014.wordpress.com/2014/08/15/not-writing/
Taking a nap afternoon, has been a tradition in most of the countries riverine to, or living around on the other banks of the Mediterranean Sea, and in Latin Americas, as well. But, it remained peculiar to Spain were it was established as a “holy” costume among people since dusting centuries, it was raised to the same level of holiness as Toro corrida, Flamenco dance, the toreador El Cordobes, bullfighting in arena, torero Ole, the collective joy in shared moments of farnientes. Dramas, passionate crimes and feuds were committed at this singular hour; the napping time, the moment of predilection: when inspiration strikes. Painters, Picasso, Miro, Salvador Dali, Living Art, Poets and writers like Frederico Garcia Lorca, Ernest Hemingway, who wrote masterpieces narrating the particular hour when the drama occurred: Death In The Afternoon_ https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1455.Ernest_Hemingway
Sleepy Time Napping time, it was introduced to Spain by the Moorish Moslems as part of their daily religious rituals; like ablutions before each prayer, the respect of one’s privacy, and by the fact that their work day starts from dusk to noon: The south of Spain is known; by being arid and hot, it tends to less activities, and more to farnientes . In a given time of today’s work, it’s already equal to six, seven hours, thus the break after lunch imposes itself de facto. In modern time, taking a nap, it is still in use, and with the same respect for the tradition, preserved intact same as times ago, that businesses close by law, between noon and two-thirty, to resume work until 5:30 PM. _The photography of the daily prompt emphasizes well a phenomenon that I had seen a longtime ago. Back then, as usually it was years ago, as I used to stop somewhere, Paris, Geneva, Bamako or elsewhere. That night it was at Alicante, Spain to spend the night, a stand-by, of the time I was a flight attendant, like bird of same feather stops for the night. I used to go to one of the café terraces to relax, as it remains a couple of hours of day-saving at its début of establishment–before dusk to enjoy the lovely late afternoon; the hotel in which we stay for the night was a few steps away from the plaza and cafeteria terrace, there, they were hundred of townsmen, owners of businesses, and families they came gathering there, to relax and chat after work for happy hours, sipping coffee, and indulgent sorbet. The phenomenon was queer enough by itself, at moments, as the shout of the crowd rose so loudly, then went crescendo riffed in to the air, to become indistinct from the clamored chirping of the birds that gathered also on the limbs of the trees like on predisposed design. Then, it ceased instantly, in to a sustainable silence like, for a split of a second, to resume to its brilliant cacophony. People and Birds that seemed comfortable with it, in common accord were both alike were indifferent to each other’s, they had come there for the sole purpose of this: to chat; the ones just perched on the limbs above the heads of the lasts, the people sitting there on the chairs, under the trees. For a person foreign to the uses and costumes of the country, who chance to come sitting there stress-free, —-not writing– and just contemplate the scene, it was naturally for him to find it strange, that with all that tumult clouding above and without annoyance and disturb, that anyone of being aghast of it, where it seemed like nobody was listening to nobody, while everybody is talking, just for the sake of it.
http://cbwentworth.wordpress.com/2014/08/20/interim/ Courtesy to C B Wentwoth
Another day, another night, this time it was ten stories atop of the bank of Niger River, sitting there in a balcony of the Hotel De L’Amitiée at Bamako, the capital of Mali, cleansed by a faint of freshness of the air at building heights, coming for the river, a mile away. I was watching thousands of bats, and flock of birds of the same feathers invading the sky at dusk in a chase of insects for the last meal, over the crests of Flamboyant trees baobabs, bananas and mango-trees, while twenty feet under, people were heading home after an exhausting day of torrid Heath, in swarm of bikes, cars and taxi-brouses–a shared car or truck for a ride by ten to twenty people– as the streetlights turned-on in the city and on the bridge, they were crossing the river in long beam of toots hanks, lights and vaporous dust . Somewhere in a distance, I silhouetted an angler on a pirogue who was throwing his fishing net in the river. People there, mostly Moslem, they stop working at noon for lunch, pray and taking a nap, to resume work at around four o’clock, the call of the muezzin for Asser prayer time Modernism, and automation focusing on generating profit, extending out-put, had taken over traditions, rituals, and the artisanal arts and craft to becoming obsolete, they are fashioning a new way of life, and style, in a fast-paced environments, at the expenses of taking time to live, and appreciate the gift of the present moment: such as, the benefit of taking a break. Recently some corporates traduced a séance of relaxation in a hub in to their office, for their employees, besides the lunch break, to increase their attentions, during their work. Ps: just for a zest of humor: if you yawn in reading this, just take a …drink and think of it, sometimes inspiration strikes, never knows, when and where.
Mackneen, The Algerian Goldfinch 