January 31, 2010 : Sundays...

Bonjour!

Cold but clear on this very gentle, sleepy Sunday morning. I woke up, oddly, at 2:22 and then at 5:55am, but dove right back in until 9! I found a trick, a way to stay in bed (normally a very early riser - these days at least): I left the window open and the cold air invited me to snuggle under the covers, ahhh, the pleasure!

I love Sunday mornings now. Full of possibilities and promise, this Sunday stretches before me like an invitation. I can create of it what I want. Clearing and cleaning or running outside to play in the sun, the day waits for me to decide. When I do, I know it will conspire with me to be its most perfect self.

This knowing fills me with gratitude... and puts a really big smile on my face!

The past winks at me then, and for a moment reminds me that for many years, Sundays were filled with pain and dread. Dread of going back to work at a job that was not for me, a too-tight shoe that I forced myself to fit in, walk in, dance in, all the while smiling perfunctorily until finally, bruised and bleeding, I bust out. No choice. It had to end. After 22 years.

I remember too that back then Sundays were mostly passed hung over and unmoving on a couch, reaching for the sedative of television after a night of other sedatives. The night seemed always to hold the promise of life: it held friends and laughter, and seemed to be a refuge from the storm. But I can see now that really the point of the exercise had always been simply to quiet that part of me that would not sit still, that wanted something else, something truer. Now that self is singing, freed.

Voilà! I shake off the past, a uniform I no longer wear, and run with scissors towards the new day, laughing. I love Sundays.