Sunday, the adjective

Without a doubt, Sunday is my favorite day of the week.

When I was young it meant large homemade breakfasts and/or even bigger dinners with family and family friends. I could be busy with school or work and excuse myself from nearly anything I wanted, but absence from Sunday dinner would require a terminal, jaw-locking, immobilizing illness. Even then, I think Mom would have found a way to make it happen. Sunday was a family institution.

In New York, Sunday meant brunches and indie films and art museums and long walks. Well, it did when I was feeling social and left the house for more than the 30 min it took to grab a bagel, coffee and the NYT - at which point it involved said bagel, coffee and NYT; NPR, nap(s), and long phone conversations with distant friends and family. Sunday was my personal, temporary, sleepy nirvana.

Here, Sunday means any number of things. It's often gobbled by bus rides back from a weekend visiting a friend. It's one reason I've come to hate to travel (that and my new, shiny cheapness). Traveling means Sunday disappears. When I do it right, it still involves some version of my old habits - brunches (though not with friends and not with a bottomless coffee cup), NYT (though online, which isn't nearly as enjoyable or... corporeal), family and good friends (though online chats replace phone-based ones). There are no bagels, few - if any - phone calls, no art museums, no indie films. And, until today (when a friend simply emailed my lazy ass the webcast link) no NPR.

Sunday, while populated with quirky hobbies and semi-traditions, is so much more. It's a state of mind. Something that releases and replenishes. It's not just about food, but food that fills you in a way that means you aren't looking for something to eat again for most of the day. It's salty and sweet, spicy and bitter, crunchy and smooth, cold and hot, creamy and fruity. Sunday friends aren't just people to pass the time with or people who simply want to shoot the breeze or people who want you to join them in whatever mental state they are in. They're people who do pass the time with you and can shoot the breeze and who will share what mental state they are in, but not expect you to rush over to it. They most often find a calm point between you and them and settle there, even if only for the day. In person it's a drifting from independently reading the paper or a book to sharing thoughts about the reading material to sincerely connecting and reconnecting - in small and large things alike. It's a flow that is easy and easily achieved. It's calming.

Somehow I always felt like I left Sundays more intelligent, more interesting, more informed. I knew more about the people in my life, more about my world, more about art and expression. I felt bigger and newly centered. I felt revived.

Some people are the "let's go" Monday types, the "gotta work" Tuesdays, the "just getting started" Wednesdays, the "still truckin'" Thursday, the "done!" Fridays or the "freebird" Saturdays. I' m more of a "tea and sympathy" Sunday.

People. Thoughts. Thoughtfulness. Coziness. Pajamas. Coffee. Bloody Marys. "Prarie Home Companion." Dozing. Quiet and lazy. So very Sunday.