Sunday Mornings

Kids hanging out!

On Sundays, I often feel a little blue...  

A day with so many possibilities.  I want to play with the kids and be lazy.  Sometimes we go to church, or we go hiking in a beautiful place, or we go out to breakfast.  I know I should catch up on the laundry and do housework.  I'm always aware that tomorrow is the start of a busy week and that can cast a shadow over enjoying the day.  

The following poem sums up the nostalgia I feel and helps me fight the Sunday Blues:

It's Sunday Morning in Early November

and there are a lot of leaves already

I could rake and get a head start.

The boys' summer toys need to be put

in the basement.  I could clean it out 

or fix the broken storm window.

When Eli gets home from Sunday school,

I could take him fishing.  I don't fish 

but I could learn to.  I could show him 

how much fun it is.  We don't do as much

as we used to do.  And my wife, there's

so much I haven't told her lately,

about how quickly my soul is aging, 

how it feels like a basement I keep filling

with everything I'm tired of surviving.

I could take a walk with my wife and try

to explain the ghosts I can't stop speaking to.

Or I could read all those books piling up

about the beginning of the end of understanding...

Meanwhile, it's such a beautiful morning,

the changing colors, the hypnotic light.

I could sit by the window watching the leaves,

which seem to know exactly how to fall

from one moment to the next.  Or I could lose

everything and have to begin over again.

 

  Philip Schultz

*Philip Schultz won the Pulitzer Prize a few weeks ago for his new book Failure.