Like Sunday Morning

I have always loved Sunday. It’s the first day of the calendar week, but it doesn’t have the stigma of Monday. It’s the last day of the weekend, but for most of the day it can be easy to forget that and just go with the flow.

It has long been a day when things get done, at least for me. I write on Sunday, I clean on Sunday, I read on Sunday, and I listen to music pretty much all day on Sunday. So, it sounds like total love, doesn’t it?

The problem is that Sunday, like all days, can be separated into three distinct time periods: morning, afternoon, and evening. And, while morning and afternoon are absolutely masterpieces, evening is where everything tends to fall apart.

It’s not that I’m anxious about returning to work, either. There’s just something to be said for time that is relatively free of schedules. There’s a peace to be had when you can look at the clock and know this is time you can do pretty much what you please, within reason. (But, believe me, sometimes I want to do things with that time that aren’t within reason. Thank god I have that little angel on my shoulder.)

These Sundays I can often be found in my study, with at least one shade open (so I can see outside but I don’t have to be outside) and Microsoft Word open, the words filling the screen like soldiers marching in formation.

Right now, Florence + the Machine is serenading me with “Make Up Your Mind,” and I’m smiling, because this is where it’s at. Sunday morning, with the music flowing, with the words dancing, that’s my happy place.

It doesn’t matter how the rest of my life is going, if I can find myself here, doing this, nothing else intrudes. It’s my own personal flurry in summer, my private heater in winter, my everything all rolled into one.

Funny how for ages my Sundays weren’t able to be spent in this manner, and funny how that coincided with the worst times in my life. But not really funny, of course. As I look around my study, I realize this is why I wanted it in the first place, so that my Sunday solace could have a physical representation, a place to breathe on its own, a place to breathe on my own.

My coffee is brewing in the kitchen. I can hear it hissing and pouring, can smell its dark brewed loveliness from afar, and I’m smiling even more. I think pretty much anyone would call this comfortable. Hopefully this lasts straight through until evening.