Day of Rest...

Sunday used to be a day of rest, but the tradition of taking some time off to relax and recuperate from the other six hectic days of the week seems like something from the distant past. Long gone are the days of Sunday drives and Sunday dinners, days without agendas. Instead, it is just another day to be productive, to get things done. Something about our culture seems to encourage us to be on the go at all times, regardless of what our bodies, minds, or souls may say. No time for reflection, just more time to "do."

I am guilty of not taking time to rest and relax.  By 12:00 today, I had already made my grandma breakfast (homemade hash browns and a couple of eggs sunny-side up) and cleaned up the kitchen, mowed the lawn and tidied up the mess, taken a shower, and headed up to church for choir practice. Outside of the choir practice, if you add in weekly vacuuming, running errands, preparing meals for the rest of the week, and maybe a run to the library, you have my typical Sunday. If I do anything otherwise, I feel non-productive, as if I am somehow failing in being a good contributor to whatever--if I don't clean house, I am a lousy housekeeper. If I don't run my errands, I am not making good use of my down time If I don't exercise for x number of minutes, I am going to become a fat, lazy slob.

Now, I admit my evenings are quiet, but they usually are. And I guess that by most standards, I am fairly lazy. But I think back to when I lived in Wales, and I remember what it was like to live in a small town where every store outside of the grocery store was closed. There wasn't much one could do outside of hanging out with friends, reading, or taking a walk, so there was not any pressure to do otherwise. (Travel was also always an option, but limited funds sometimes precluded a trip to a larger town, and even then, many things had limited hours of operation.)

I recall how much I enjoyed my walk to church there, taking my time to stroll among the houses, no sense of urgency hastening my steps. I even lingered afterward to talk some with the members of the congregation, which is something I never do here. At some point during the day, I would sit in my room, BBC1 radio on in the background--nothing says relaxation than the quirky mix of techno, Brit pop, and the occasional Bhangra beat--and write in my journal. Sunday was my day to call home, too. Rain or shine, one could find me huddled in the little red phone booth outside the porter's office, checking on how things were going back home. Dinner with my friends lasted far longer than on any other day (there were times we were shooed away by the cafeteria workers). It was simple. It was quiet. It was amazing. I will acknowledge that many of my memories of Wales are surrounded by a warm, fuzzy haze that mitigates all of the negative thoughts and emotions from that time and accentuates all the positives. However, Sunday was consistently my favorite day of the week.

It wasn't easy at first to adjust to this slower pace. Initially, I felt there was always something I had to be doing otherwise. I felt like my day was wasted because I hadn't checked off an arbitrary number of "to-dos" from an imaginary list. Eventually, though, I embraced it, realizing that imaginary list bore no role in my greater happiness. Indeed, sometimes it caused an even greater distress, and I began to wonder what I had been missing in pursuit of being productive--what conversations, what experiences had been lost to complete one more task.

I wish I could recapture the Sundays in Wales. Sadly, as I have grown older, the outside noise has increased ten-fold, and it seems there is always so much more to do, so many things that need my attention that to take th time to shut it all out doesn't seem quite possible. I take that back. It is quite possible, but I am not sure I am ready to do something about it really. There are so many things right now that I want to change in my life, but I have, time and time again, underestimated the sheer force of inertia. It is possible to have the Sundays of yore, but it is difficult when it seems that everyone and everything are conspiring against you...and when you are your biggest impediment, it seems at least ten times harder. Still, it is with small steps that change can occur. Maybe sometime very soon, I will take the steps necessary to reclaim Sunday as a day of rest...and I will remind myself it is possible to stay unplugged for twenty-four hours and not have the world crash in around you.