Humans are just plants with extra steps. We need to soak in the sun, as if it’s a manufacturer’s requirement for our bodies to function well. As we get older, however, we tend to write off self-maintenance as optional, mainly because there are no immediate external consequences. This results in you only attending to this need when your friend group schedules finally align for a Saturday trip.  

This trip unfolds in parts. The first is the two-plus-hour drive out of the city. During this phase, you and your friends catch up, continuing stories left off from your last lucky mashup. Inevitably, tangent stories with drawn-out questionnaires interrupt everyone’s tales, but those delays are always welcomed. As you pull into the destination parking lot, whatever story or tangent topic that meets you there joins the group in the second phase of the trip.

Being at the destination may seem like the best chapter of the trip—because it is. Here, we overcome the icy water by joining in a ritual that makes us harmonize with the river. We enter and exit the water, each time immersing a bit more, pouring water from our shoulders down to our arms. We make sure to stay a little longer each time in our new checkpoint. Soon, you notice a minute in the water is truly just a minute, not an endless loop. You’re offered the chance to be splashed to speed up the merger ritual. You nervously decline, only to be attacked playfully by another friend, whose only defense is a story of the same injustice. You accept your tolerances for the water and agree to do a full-body plunge with the group. That dip ends your time in the water. You find a nice rock and soak in the sun. Eventually, everyone finds their rock to lie on. We turn ourselves into a pack of lizards, contouring to find the warmest spot and resting in silence together.

Time seems to slow down when we let nature serenade us. It is as though Nature and Time have a special agreement that creates this phenomenon. Apparently, Time, too, enjoys masterpieces created by wind passing through trees and the woodland creatures’ lively voices, while water colliding with rocks provides the percussion.

Once you’ve had your fill of sun, you and your group trot to the final part of the trip. The ride home always feels faster, even though traffic is more hectic. We also make more pit stops, since now we don’t have to chance a good stop near the river. All are welcome to point out this strange anomaly, but no one slanders the marvelous contradiction. The silence on the ride home is much like that at the river—careful restfulness. Instead of listening to nature, we have our trip’s playlist, road noise, and the buzzing of a stray bug that entered the car at some unknown stop. The journey ends with thanks to the driver for their sacrifices. We all leave with a newfound determination to visit the river once a week, despite all the reasons self-maintenance once seemed optional. Now, you’ve relearned the importance of sun soaking.