Everything Looks Different on a Monday

Monday is my day off. I love Mondays. Mondays are like deep breaths of fresh air at the ocean. They are like ice cream mixed with milk, or the cherry cheesecake my mother only makes on my birthday, or getting to go to a bookstore with a $50 giftcard that you did not pay for. Everything looks different on a Monday; I mean this literally. I was walking around New York today--the same streets that I traverse everyday--and I actually didn't recognize E. 25th between 2nd and 3rd Avenue. I swear that it was not the same sidewalk as it was on Friday (also known as "two days before Sunday"). How can this be? Maybe it's because I walk more slowly on Mondays, in my comfortable shoes (as opposed to the cute boots that look good with both jeans and nice pants). Maybe it's because I don't care what I look like on Mondays. Maybe it's because I'm thinking about different things--not thinking about church or what things I can cross off my ever-expanding to-do list. Maybe it's because when I walk, I'm somehow not thinking at all... just looking. Noticing. Paying attention to how I love the shape of that window, or wondering about the shop I've never noticed before, or imagining the nature of the relationship between the two people I've just passed. What's odd is that I rarely do anything on Mondays. I really don't. You'd think I should be visiting museums or running errands or working on that book I'd like to finish... er, I mean, start. But no. I do pretty much nothing (or read novels). Yet I rarely feel like I'm missing out, or guilty, or lazy. But during the rest of the week, I consistently feel like I'm somehow missing out on my life. I feel like the person on the tour bus who looks out the window a half-second too late and misses the rare red-tailed hawk that everyone else had been oohing and aahing about moments before. During the non-Monday days, my life is jam-packed with things to do, responsibilities, important things to think about, people to call, prayers to pray, beautiful things to write, a community of faith to build, and yet why do I feel like I'm missing it? Why do I feel like I always look up a half-second too late?

Everything looks different on a Monday, and I think this might be a bad thing. I think it might be unhealthy. I think it speaks to the lack of balance in my life. On Mondays, I read like a starving person. I finish a novel in one day, as though reading for enjoyment is not allowed on other days. I don't think on Mondays, as though thinking could not be both work and play. It's a strange form of bulimia--binging and purging when it comes to "rest." Mondays are vacations in the worst sense of the word--vacating my life. And the rest of the week is a kind of vacating from life too--vacating from the sheer joy of noticing and paying attention to details that look at first glance like they don't matter all that much.

I know what Mondays should be: they should be Sabbaths. Sabbath is rest in the best sense of the word. Sabbath is like eating when you're hungry, and letting that practice shape what you let nourish you. But knowing this, and living it are not the same thing. Just like cute shoes and comfortable shoes are NEVER the same thing. I guess that no matter what everything will look different on a Monday, but in a more balanced way of living, things shouldn't look that different. They should at least be recongizable.