Honey and Milk

And when I couldn't sleep Grandmother would make me a mug of warm honey milk. Nothing or singular about it, a mug with milk and honey microwaved. She knew the time it took to get it warm and keep it without skin. Nothing has the power to ruin quite like skin. So I would quit fooling myself and walk to her side, whether it was in bed or awake, and she would make it right. And it wasn't until I was much older that I realized, quite possibly, that the only thing which made it work were Grandmother's words telling me it would.

"Drink this," she'd say. "It is warm, and settling, and will help soften you right to sleep." That was what it was to her, that people went to bed rigid. There was no ritual of relaxation, not for most people, there certainly isn't today. But a mug of warm honey milk would put you right with the world. Maybe it cradles your subconscious, makes you feel like a baby again. We feel like we are once again children, and there is someone watching over us, and they will make sure we are all right. Of course, being a child you feel very little of this. Or, rather, you do not recognize it. Not until years go by, and the rigidity of the world has kept you up.

I remember, in Sunday school, reading about a land of milk and honey. A place of prosperity and abundance, a place for God's chosen people. The promised land. And I thought it interesting, that the drink lulling me to sleep when I could not manage it myself should be made of the same stuff.