Sunday Laws

Sunday, May 15, 2022

A week without Sunday is a week without oppression.   It's a day of rest and perhaps prayer, but it's a day to reflect on the horror of the coming week.  My anxiety is one where I refuse to look at a calendar.  The thought that Sunday is coming upon us is something that paralyzes me, like a deer caught in a car's headlight.  The first time I realized that there was a Sunday was when I was a child, and the family first got together every Sunday.  It seemed the minutes became hours and then forever.  I soon realized that this was going to be the schedule in our family, and every Sunday, it appears that the minutes spent were precisely like the one last week and so forth.   Sunday, oh hell. 

When I became school-age, which went up to my teenage years, I suffered greatly under the tyranny of a Sunday.  Friday late afternoon and evening were a sense of relief that I made it through the school week.  Saturday, I let myself go and be fancy-free - but then came Sunday, and my mood became the color black.  

Now that I got a full-time job, I find myself OK during the workweek.  Like my school years, I turn off the day's pain and try to think of either the color blue or black—two colors where I can put myself in a zone or place that doesn't exist. Once there, I can make the reality of the moment (i.e., workday) disappear.  But Sunday, I can't do the focus thing at all.  It is like I'm exhausted from the actual work and the mental space that I put myself in.  Even though I'm drained on Friday, I feel a sense of relief that I don't have to work the next day.  But it comes Saturday night, and I spend my time reflecting on the coming Sunday and how that will affect me. 

My favorite Sunday record album is Robert Wyatt's "Rock Bottom."  It's a sad-sounding record. But, of course, there is humor within the grooves as well.  Wyatt, to me, is the most reflective and saddest singer in the world.  Not a sound of regret, but the pause of life standing still.  When he reflects, I feel that the world comes to him in slow motion.  I can put my left toe in his bathwater, but I don't get the full effect of Wyatt's world.  It's not the music or him, but the fact that I'm involved with only one person - me.  

With nothing better else to do, I decided to go out for a walk.  The philosophy is that walking can clear the head and put things in perspective.  For me, it magnifies my feelings, which become overwhelming at times.  Nevertheless, I am going out this Sunday to feel what the world can offer me.   I find myself at Echo Park Lake, walking around the giant pond and, at the same time, watching the various bird families that sun themselves on the side of the lake.  I wish I could let myself go and lay there and sun myself.   

There is something about a body of water that makes time standstill.  It is here that what I desire is a world without time.  Death must be engaging in a way where time doesn't creep up on you.  Nothing is the thing.  I can deal with "nothing."