Edna claims she’s found the secret to a good night’s sleep. It not a hot bath, warm milk, a long walk, comfy bedding or soft music, she said.
“It’s lavender.”
“You mean the flower?” I said in wonder. “Don’t tell me you’re sleeping with a potted plant? What does Harry think of that?”
“No, no, it’s the fragrance I’m talking about. I spritz my pillowcase with the scent and I’m off to Snoozeville in minutes. It’s heavenly and therapeutic. Try it, you’ll be surprised.”
Normally, I’m a fast sleeper, but one day I must’ve over-napped or over-caffeinated, because by bedtime my eyes were sprung wide. I thought of Edna’s advice and began rummaging through the ointments, salves, creams and lotions in my night table to see if there was a lavender scent among them.
All I could find was a long-overlooked jar of J.R. Watkins Lavender Shea Butter. It was worth a try. So I slaked my body in what was left and cozied under the covers enjoying the aromatherapy before falling quickly to sleep.
Maybe Edna was onto something. But Lavender Shea Butter seemed a bit expensive to use as medication, so I imagined the other possibilities that might work just as well. Maybe a lavender-scented candle or a bowl of potpourri at my bedside. Perhaps a scented soap. I had a bar of Yardley’s English Lavender with Pure Extracts and Essential Oils that might work. I’d take the bar of soap to bed with me, hold it in my hand and see what happened. I fell asleep instantly. Unfortunately, during the night my natural reflexes kicked in and the next morning I woke up in a sweat, holding a slippery bar of soap to my ear desperately trying to make a cell phone call.
My Soapy Plight
I told Edna about my soapy plight.
“Oh, I don’t do the lavender thing anymore,” she said. Harry reads in bed and the scent was so powerful, it put him to sleep too soon and he never got to finish a book. He kept complaining, so I went back to chamomile tea.”
“Drinking all that tea might be calming, but don’t you get up a lot during the night?”
“I’m not drinking it. I just stuff a few tea bags in my pajama pocket. I read on line that the heat of your body causes the essence to penetrate the pores and relax the nerve endings.”
“Does that really work?” I said with a quizzical look.
Edna shrugged her shoulders. “Not so well,” she admitted, “but Harry’s half way through War and Peace.”
