SABBATH

This is a day of rest and is actually more restful this week, preceded by having Saturday off. Every other week I work on Saturday and so Sunday is the ONLY day I have to rest. That often makes me panicky because I feel the pressure of having to rest and worrying that if I’m not resting and have to start work again on Monday I am sure to fall apart by Wednesday. Of course it’s hard to rest when your house is for sale and you can’t lounge around in your PJ’s till 3:00 PM . At any moment a realtor could call and say she and her client will be over in ten minutes. It takes a good hour to make the bed, shower, pick up towels and underwear, get the dishes going and examine the carpet for the little bits of leaves and stones brought in on our sneakers. For now, what constitutes Sunday rest is about two hours with an extra coffee, the scrawny Tucson Sunday paper debulked from its ads, and a few interview shows.

When I was growing up, the Sabbath was an entirely different proposition. We couldn’t lounge around in the morning because we had to go to Mass and the rule was: if you don’t go to Mass, you don’t anywhere that day. We usually went at 11:00 because with six of us and one bathroom, it took forever for us all to get ready. You couldn’t just throw anything on either. You had to have a dress or skirt and blouse…and a hat…and white gloves. It was always possible to locate one glove but never two. Someone was always yelling at someone else, accusing them of having moved something that could not now be located. And that was the way we went out the door every Sunday, clothes barely buttoned and zipped, totally stressed out, off to pay homage to the Prince of Peace.



Mass was usually followed by a large breakfast and a prolonged family discussion about the sermon, the dreadful soprano or something in the morning news. I guess that was restful in its own way. We always laughed a lot and lost track of time with no expectation for how the rest of the day would go. My parents would often nap in the afternoon , my older sisters would take off with friends and I would go across the street to play Monopoly or Star Reporter with the neighborhood kids. Sometimes I’d curl up with a book. The day had a special feel to it. Nobody worked. The stores were all closed. It was the 1950’s and the world felt safe (if you didn’t let yourself dwell on the Russians).

It would be nice to have a day when everything stopped. As I get older I find myself wistful about the simplicity of an earlier time that was lighter on the soul. Then I realize I can choose to close the doors and shut out the noise any time I want. Maybe that can happen ... after this transition is over and the Sunday realtors are gone from our life.