The Sunday Series: Sunday, May 10, 2015

A week without Sunday is a week without oppression.   A day of rest and perhaps prayer, but in fact 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 realize that there was a Sunday, was when I was a child, and the family first got together on 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 seems that the minutes spent, were exactly like the one last week and, so forth.   Sunday, oh hell. 

When I became school-age, that 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 in the work-week.  Like my school years, I turn off the pain of the day, 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. work day) disappear as well.  But Sunday I can't do the focus thing at all.  It is like I'm exhausted from the actual work as well as the mental space that I put myself in.  To be honest, even though I'm very tired on Friday, I feel a sense of relief that I don't have to work the next day.  But comes Saturday night, and I just 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 come to him in slow motion.  For me, 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 totally involved with only one person - me.  

With nothing better else to do, I decided to go out for a walk.  There is the philosophy that walking can clear the head and put things in a perspective.  For me, it magnifies my feelings that become overwhelming at times.  Nevertheless, I go out this Sunday to feel what the world can offer me.   I find myself at the 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 as well.   

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