Sunday Quietude As the Day Begins

Sunday morning dawns with a particular enchantment.  Especially this time of year.  I can no more account for its difference from the days that ride on either of its shoulders than I can defend the assertion.  I simply find myself in the midst of it — a kind of reverie.  There is a stillness ; a quietude illuminated by the flames in the fireplace, an open novel in my lap, and first light above the eastern horizon glistening off the overnight frost.  It is a stillness made all the more dramatic in contrast to yesterday’s wind that swept leaves into some distant pile, overturned deck chairs and upended the sawhorse perches in the chicken yard.  This morning calm has returned to the largely naked branches, and all the earth — at least our several acres of it — seems to have exhaled, relieved and relaxing yesterday’s tense muscles.  It’s Sunday.

The experience of it is all the more peculiar at this stage of my life when one day is largely undifferentiated from another.  “Work weeks” are a thing of the past, stripping weekends of their prior charm.  We don’t watch television, so the broadcast schedule no longer drops orienting breadcrumbs to guide us through the week.  Everyday is largely one to be constructed according to our own initiatives and the claims of our household rather than the constraints or rhythms of the faucet from which drips a paycheck.  In the words of the pop Christmas song, everyday pretty much does feel like a holiday.  

Nonetheless I feel it as I raise the hood of my sweater against the chill, step into my boots and trudge out to release the chickens for the day, right the upended pieces in the yard, and smile appreciatively at the nascent sun.  I internalize it as I step back inside, strip off my sweater and release myself back into the flickering warmth from the hearth and the coziness of the snuggling dog.  

The spell won’t last forever.  There is breakfast to prepare, dishes to clear away, church to dress for and the busyness of a full afternoon beyond its benediction.  

But for now, even with the smell of bacon frying in the kitchen and a kind of murmuring of the stirring day, there is a quieting stillness about Sunday morning that suspends me.  A reverie that is different from other days.

And I’ll not hurry past it.