The Simple Pleasures of Sundays
I.
One of my favorite fantasies is to imagine a life free from the constraints of clocks and calendars. I picture myself waking with the morning sun, light streaming through an open bedside window and warming my chest. In this fantasy there are no meetings scheduled, no offices to rush to. I am just a man immersed in the small and immeasurate joys of the present moment.
It’s the difference between making a pot of coffee because you need to and making a pot of coffee because you want to.
As the days stretch by and turn to years, and the years stack up, living like this I think that your perception of time itself would shift, a fundamental reorientation around the four seasons, the rising and falling sun, the waxing and waning moon. Remember, this is how we were meant to live, before we mucked everything up by creating clocks and calendars.
It’s ironic - by breaking time down into smaller and smaller pieces, we made it more powerful than we could ever have predicted. Now, we’re so used to it we don’t think twice about it. That’s why this fantasy is so resonant for me: it speaks to a desire for a freedom buried deep within me, so deep it took me decades to realize it even existed.
Still, even in this fantasy, I do think I might miss Sundays.
II.
Sunday is not like the other days of the week. Everything that is good is easier to do on Sunday.
Those chores that seemed just a bit too daunting after a long day of work now seem friendly and downright approachable. Shopping for groceries sounds delightful. Your dirty laundry practically jumps into the washing machine on its own. Meanwhile, your reading chair beckons, begging for you to curl up and lose yourself in someone’s words.
Even the strings of your piano are richer and warmer on Sundays.
It is a day of renewal, both spiritual and otherwise. I often marvel at the beautiful architecture of churches in America. Sometimes, it feels like churches are the only beautiful buildings remaining in cities at all. And I remember that for the builders who worked so hard to create that beauty, they did so in honor of God and the holy day of Sunday. Every glorious stained glass window, each hand-hewn pew, the altars and arcades, cloisters and choir stalls - all are best experienced on Sunday.
III.
There are many other wonderful things you can do on a Sunday.
You could have a picnic with your lover, intertwined fingers a proxy for your souls. You could listen to an old favorite album and allow yourself to be nostalgic. You could have lunch with mom and dad, or a sibling or dear friend, and think of new ways to say “I love you” to them without using words. Or you could go for a hike, escaping from the dreary safety of the suburbs into the wilderness.
Myself, I went for a walk to the park with my notebook and a black Pilot G2 10 pen - the finest writing instrument ever mass-produced - so I could work on a story.
It was wonderful.
IV.
In a strange sense, part of what makes Sundays so special is that it is the day of the week that comes closest to embodying the clock-free fantasy I described earlier. The pace of Sundays is leisurely, but still full of meaning and productivity, community and connectedness. If the rest of the week is about contorting your spirit to meet each day’s obligations, Sunday is the one day that accepts you as you are.
I can’t help but wonder - in a world without clocks and calendars, would every day be as lovely as Sunday?