Embracing the Spanish Siesta

My casera (landlady) tells the story of her late father, an antiquarian book seller from Madrid, who took the Spanish siesta very seriously. Each afternoon following his midday meal, he changed from his street clothes to pajamas and climbed into bed for an hour or two break from the day.

Despite alarmist studies like one out of Costa Rica in the Oxford Journal that warn of increased risk of coronary events, I’m convinced of the value of siesta, and yet it was one of the hardest aspects of Spanish life for me to embrace.

When my son and I walked 800 kilometers on the Camino de Santiago in 2013, we were reprimanded by one Los Arcos host for walking through the heat of the day and arriving at the albergue during siesta. At the time, I was irritated and dead on my feet, but I might not have experienced some of the pain of that initial Spanish journey if I’d taken his advice and accepted the rhythm and pace of a Spanish day.

Instead, I complained about not being able to find a store open between 2 and 5 p.m. on Camino nor a kitchen serving food between 4 and 8 p.m. each day, just when I most wanted to eat. By the end of our Camino, I had not yet mastered the change to my morning, noon, and early evening meals schedule.

Anyone who met me on Camino could see that I had needed a rest, not just a siesta but a very long rest from the furious pace of competition-driven Seattle where I lived and worked for more than 30 years. I moved to Spain in March last year to discover the siesta and to find a new rhythm and purpose to my life that encompasses all of me: Mother, worker, provider, woman, friend, writer, artist. The siesta fit nicely into my plans for renewal and change.

I’ve embraced the Spanish nap, especially in the heat of the summer when Madrid temperatures often climb well over 100 degrees farenheit in the late afternoon. From my observation, Spaniards who take siesta stay up much later than I do socializing with friends and family into the cooler late-night hours, something I’m not likely to do any time soon. I love my uninterrupted sleep.

For Spaniards, an afternoon rest simply makes good sense. You’ll also find Madrid emptying out for the holidays in August when the summer heat is most intense. This can translate to a summer version of the Christmas holidays in the states and in Spain when very little real work is accomplished.

My friend Enrique likes to say that I’m more Spanish than some Spaniards: I don’t know about that (my Spanish is testimony that I have a ways to go to reach Spanish status), but I appreciate the wisdom of tradition. So I’m going to take a Spanish rest in August to re-vision next steps and siesta with my youngest child, who is very excited to return to Spain for several weeks of beach and travel time.