I’d just like to say that I titled this before I wrote it, and directly after I put those words on the page, I also typed them into Spotify to see if there was a playlist for this exact kind of day. There is. There’s always an upside to the data of the global population getting breached, right? Spotify knows what the people want. Now I’m listening to “We Are Young” and have been mentally transported to the Last Chance Dance during my final week of tenth grade, when hundreds of teenagers became one for three minutes as we sang the words “carry me home tonight” at our friends, at our peers, and at the ceiling, just reveling in being the titular characters of the song. But that’s not where I was going with this at all. My mind wanders more than usual on Sundays.
This morning, I woke up at 8:30, and then actually got up as well. Sometimes waking up and getting up can be of two hours’ difference for me, but not today. I’ve been adamant lately about becoming a morning person. Now that it’s starting to feel more like summer, I would rather start my day earlier and be awake for more of the nice weather than asleep anyway. Warm mornings are my favorite; the midday scorch is a bit much, but when the sun is still rising and the temperature is prime, I am absolutely here for it. No one else was up yet, so the house was quiet except for the hum of a lawnmower somewhere on my street, and the birds tweeting about; the usual drawl of a Sunday morning. I opened the window, made my coffee, and turned on Meet the Press in the living room to recap the week’s news. I put in my two cents out loud during the panel, wondering if my parents were at home questioning the same comments. It was extremely gratifying, but I wished I’d been eating bacon while I was at it. After I got dressed, I met Erin at our favorite coffee shop down the canyon road to do some work, and we talked for ten minutes before acquiescing that the internet was down and no work or research could be done there. Not the worst realization in the world. We drove to another place for Studying, Take 2, only to find that there was a street fair going on, and no parking was to be found for who knew how many blocks. Take 3 was my house, until that fell apart as well, because sometimes, Sundays are just not for schoolwork. I may not be religious, but I practice the sabbath too. When the air started to cool later in the afternoon, I hopped on my bike and cruised to the used book shop on the main boulevard nearest my house, and bought Eight White Nights after reading a line near the beginning that delineated such a scrupulous exploration of the human experience that I had to buy it immediately. I wanted to channel my European lifestyle and start reading it on my porch, blanketed by the soft warmth of the falling sun, with a cigarette dangling from my fingertips, just to taste the continent again. Don't judge me; I already judged myself. Each hit, each 2 second inhale, momentarily displaced me from my front porch— suddenly, it was last call at Chapeau Rouge, or I was dangling my legs from the bay window of Jungmannova 5, or storytelling at the upside-down bar in Berlin— until my lips left the stick to exhale, and I was back in California where smoking is disgusting. Home sweet home. If anyone’s thinking, My God, if you miss Europe, just eat a wheel of gouda— I’m all over it next time. The book I bought is as good so far as I’d initially deemed it; I read certain sentences over and over and over again, and raced over others as fast as the words seemed to run. Depending on how they are strung together, words read like a heartbeat in my opinion; they either slow to the pace of the mood, or pound and dash to the excitement. I don’t know if this is unique to myself, or if everyone feels some version of this while reading; I’ve never thought to ask anyone. Everyone was about the house for dinner time. My roommates are very easy to live with. One of us is always walking in with stories to tell, or leaving to go make some. Later in the night, I swooped by Steph’s house, which is two streets down. We debriefed our days, and planned to do it again tomorrow at happy hour. We’ll have more to discuss by then, because life keeps happening; the autonomous decisions we make and risks we take are only upping the stakes at this point, and this stuff just doesn’t get boring. It’s the season of our lives when we either bask in the glory of our efforts, or reap the consequences of the impatient impulses on which we acted. Both are equally fun to reflect on, because we know how to laugh and learn. Truly, that’s what Lazy Sundays are for: Reflection. That’s practically all I did today, in some form or another.
1 Comment
Kim (mom)
4/16/2018 04:59:04 pm
Yes! I think of words in sentences that way as well, although I would never have been able to articulate it as clearly and brilliantly as you did!
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
October 2023
|