My daughter Marigold, who recently turned 4, informs me that she is done
with naps.
“I’m a big kid now,” she says solemnly. “And big kids don’t sleep.”
She also now fights bedtime. Once we’ve brushed her teeth and read books, I lie down with her. Her sister, who is two years older, falls asleep immediately. But Marigold likes to talk: She tells me she is an elf and that, late at night, she travels to the North Pole but is back by morning. She tells me what each shadow in her room looks like and makes bunny ears with her fingers. She asks if we can have a midnight feast. She takes sips of water. And eventually, usually long after I am half asleep, her eyes close. She finally rests.
Rest feels elusive for me. I have two young children, a full-time job, and I often travel for speaking engagements. Between a new novel and my stage play, I have barely been home for two weeks out of the past two months. The digital world makes me feel constantly “on call.” My phone is always in my hand as I answer emails and read updates from daycare. Recently, I found myself home and in bed during the middle of the day. My mother, who was visiting, asked me what I was doing. “Resting,” I replied guiltily. How could I explain that I was so tired that all I could do was stare at the wall? It was the best way I knew to help myself relax. And it was the only way I could get up later to do laundry and make dinner.
Last fall, the University of Colorado retired its mascot, a bison, Ralphie VI, because of an “indifference to running.” Born in 2020 as Ember, she was the sixth “Ralphie,” introduced to the public in 2021 as a 15-month-old 500-pound bison calf. Her job was simple: She needed to stir up the crowd for the second half of the game by running a lap around the field before kickoff. But most games, she hardly made it past the 50-yard line, and when she did, her gait was closer to a saunter. Her last official appearance was during the 2024 Alamo Bowl, where her disinterest in running led to jokes about her “opting out” of the game.
A university press release noted that she lacked the “juice or desire to run at full speed, often displaying apathy towards the, at times, 1,300-lb animal’s primary job.” Her predecessor, Ralphie V, was known for running too fast and getting too excited. “With past Ralphies, as they aged, their speed typically decreased; with Ralphie V, she has been so excited to run that she was actually running too fast, which created safety concerns for her and her handlers,” the school said when she retired.
Ember and Ralphie V (i.e., Blackout) are now cohabitants on a bison ranch, the location of which remains undisclosed due to the 1970 kidnapping of Ralphie I. In a recent press release, Steve Hurlbert, director of strategic communications for the university, stated, “Due to an indifference to running, typical of many mammals both four-legged and two-legged, it was determined that it was in Ember’s best interest, based on her disposition, to focus on relaxing strolls on the pasture, which is her favorite hobby.” Ember was being put out to pasture, literally. Now she gets to live on her terms.
A friend called Ember an embodiment of the West. She is an unconventional and independent spirit impervious to being influenced by others. Even in captivity, she displayed rugged individualism, freedom and self-reliance. She wasn’t ready for the constraints of convention. CU may have lost a mascot, but I gained one. Like Ember, I am OK with moving at my own speed and going against the grain. The world feels so weary; everyone seems to have an opinion on how to live, what books to read and how something should be known. It’s exhausting. Ember just said no. Like Melville’s Bartleby, she just preferred not to.
I, too, wish that at times we could hit pause.
I have always lived life at more of a walking pace. In high school, we had two choices for physical education. What we called Jocks PE and Regular PE. I was no athlete, but if you took Regular PE, you had to do a semester of swimming, and I hated being in the water. To pass Jocks PE, you had to run two miles in 18 minutes. I was determined to do it. When the day came, I laced up my shoes and followed the other girls around the track. My lungs burned, but I kept going. The thought of having to go to biology with wet hair kept me running fast. I made it with two seconds to spare and promptly threw up. As I got older, running took on new forms: going to college, graduate school, marriage, jobs, promotions, publishing books.
To fight for the things that matter the most to us, we have to remain whole — and that means not always running.
To rest is radical. To fight for the things that matter the most to us, we have to remain whole — and that means not always running. Last fall, for the first time in my life, my university offered a seminar called “Rest Is Resistance.” They brought a group of us faculty into a room and told us that productivity doesn’t equal success. For all of us sitting there, it was the first time a workplace had told us to take breaks: to not answer emails at top speed or work on our phones until midnight. I went home confused. But when I started telling my students that I wouldn’t answer any emails after 5 p.m., that I would check again first thing in the morning, a funny thing happened: I was happier. When I took the weekends to put work aside, I rested.
One of the most popular phrases from the “Code of the West,” which hangs in classrooms and diners across the West, is Ride for the brand. It’s a cowboy-rooted saying that signifies absolute loyalty, dedication and truth toward one’s employer or team. I like the idea of this. But I also like saying, I am my own person. We don’t all need to run just because a group is on the football field telling us to. I like to think about Ember in her pasture, resting and looking up at the sky.
Last weekend, on the way home from playing in the park, Marigold told me that when we got home, she was going to take a little rest. “Just a little one, mama.” I told her it was good to rest her body, so that when she woke up, she would be ready for whatever comes next. I don’t want to steer her toward convention for its own sake. I want her to know how to choose what she needs and what feels right for her. I don’t doubt that someday she, too, will have a phone in her hand. I just want her to know that she can put it down. She can close her eyes and press pause.
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This article appeared in the April 2026 print edition of the magazine with the headline “A time to rest.”
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