A walk in the park

I really wanted to post some­thing pro­found, thought-provoking or just plain silly this even­ing, but then my brain ran out of run­way. So if you’ve come here for some­thing enlight­en­ing … sorry.

Instead, a con­ver­sa­tion with a friend has just got me think­ing about the nature of Sundays. There was a time, believe it or not, when I genu­inely used Sundays for the very pur­pose they were inven­ted for. I actu­ally went to church. But that’s far too long ago to even recall now. I think the last time Sunday was used for that pur­pose in my life was approx­im­ately thir­teen years ago. How­ever, Sundays — give or take the odd excep­tion — still retain that con­tra­dict­ory feel­ing they’ve had for much of my life. Half of me wants Sundays to end, because they’re invari­ably dull; but half of me wants them to con­tinue, because they keep the work­ing week at bay. I’m not too keen on things that make the world stop — bank hol­i­days, Christ­mas, Easter and, of course, Sundays — unless I’m the one mak­ing the world stop of my own accord. By dis­ap­pear­ing to a deser­ted island for a month, for instance. But even if I do that, I’d like the world that I exper­i­ence to grind to a halt too, so that when I return I know where I am and I can pick up where I left off.

I’m con­vinced there’s some deeply-rooted child­hood men­tal­ity going on here. I’m sure that I still some­how asso­ci­ate Sundays with fin­ish­ing home­work, wash­ing and iron­ing my school uni­form, and going to bed early. The first two have long dis­ap­peared, but the last does still tend to inhabit my routine. I’m def­in­itely going to have to do some­thing about Sundays — pos­sibly abol­ish them.