I’m a creature of habit; I love routine. This morning, as I was preparing to run on the treadmill, we lost power to our house. AEP assured us it would be back on around 12:30. With our routine interrupted, Cathy and I decided to go out for breakfast. It was lovely. After breakfast, we did a bit of shopping. We went to PetSmart and bought a new litter box. Stanley has gotten too big for his old one. Then we went to Burlington Coat Factory where Cathy browsed but didn’t find anything that suited her.

For some time now, I’ve been thinking about getting a new mattress to replace one that’s twelve years old. I’ve been having sleepless nights, mostly because of all I have on my mind regarding Cathy’s health, but also because of low back pain. Cathy insisted I replace the old mattress, so we found one to our liking and placed an order. It’ll be here on Tuesday.

Cathy has been wanting a new recliner, so we stopped in La-Z-Boy. She found one she liked, but she said she wanted to think about it. By the time we got home, it was about 2:30, and our power was back on.

What a perfectly wonderful ordinary day it was. After Cathy being in the hospital last week, this sort of day was exactly what we needed.  I took a break from running, Cathy took a break from feeling miserable, and I did my best to take a break from worrying. We were just a husband and a wife—Lee and Cathy—doing some Sunday shopping. We weren’t at a hospital, we weren’t at a chemotherapy treatment, we weren’t at another doctor’s appointment. We felt more normal than we had in some time.

Writers can benefit from such breaks in their routines. We can try writing at different times than we usually do. We can write in different locales. We can decide not to write at all. A little break can give us a fresh perspective on what we’re writing. Time away can re-energize us. It can allow our unconscious minds to work on our material without us getting in the way. I used to be afraid to take a writing break. I feared I’d never find my way back to a manuscript. I’ve changed as I’ve gotten older. I see the value of variations in my routine. I suggest our characters can also benefit from a rest. We put them in so much trouble—really, the usually bring their own misery into their lives—why not allow them the grace of some time away from their problems? Try giving a character the chance to do something they genuinely love. See what happens.

I’ll never forget lying in the sun at the mattress store today. Cathy stretched out on a mattress next to mine.

“Well, Henry Dees,” she said, referencing a character and a scene in a furniture store from my last novel, The Evening Shades, “shall we take a little nap?”

It wouldn’t have taken much. If the salesclerk—the “sleep expert”—had left us alone, I imagine, like Henry Dees and Edith Green, we would have done just that.