Musings & Threads. The Sweetness of Sundays.

May 3

May 3 Musings & Threads. The Sweetness of Sundays.

The Sweetness of Sundays

In my little world, Sundays are like sundaes - a decadent dessert to be savored at the end of a meat-and-potatoes week of working and shuffling kids around. It’s a day when I can choose to never leave the house (thank you, Shipt), never change out of my lounge pants, and simply write or clean or lounge as much as I please, letting my mood make every decision. 100% Guilt. Free. I can choose to sit at my cozy desk and shop or research or meditate til my heart’s content.

If all six of the children are gone (which happens on a regular schedule in our blended household) I can decide to go 48 hours without wearing a bra if I want to (can I get an Amen?!). I can eat leftover cake for breakfast in my underwear. Or I can let my husband make breakfast and fix me one of his famous Bloody Marys while I light the fireplace and cue up Casablanca. Then I can take an hour-long bath and paint my toes and give myself a facial. Should I choose to get out of my lounge pants on a Sunday, I can take my sweet time getting ready and then go see my friends for some day-drinking (thank you, inventor of “brunch”, you cheeky devil, you.) It’s Sunday. And I shall do as I damned well please! And in my world of working mama ‘must-do’s’, that alone makes it sacred.

If it’s a Sunday in the springtime or the fall, I’ll likely be on the sidelines of a soccer field, which does technically involve yet more shuffling of kids. But even then, Sundays remain the sweet spot; it’s when all of the hard work my three sons have (theoretically) put in at their team practices during the week finally gets to be showcased at a weekend game. It’s when I don my green ‘team apparel’ (or blue, or red, depending on the kid) and happily immerse myself into their world. I believe I may love being a soccer mom as much as my boys love actually playing soccer - and I have assembled the fully-stocked “soccer mom kit” in my trunk to prove it. No seriously, it’s so exhaustive and organized and, I’ll just go ahead and say it, PERFECT, that I’ve considered making them to sell. But that would probably involve me doing some sort of work on Sunday, so nope. Its glory remains mine alone.

This past Sunday morning we did have kids at home, just the boys, and as I baked bacon and scrambled eggs, my thirteen year old appeared and asked if he could help. I said sure and put him on toast duty. I had James Taylor’s October Road playing in the background. He’s my favorite artist; he’s a large part of the soundtrack of my childhood, and that is my absolute favorite of his albums. I had slept like a rock, I was in my pajamas with no plans of changing that and on just about all accounts, it was a sublime morning.

Sidenote: Anyone who’s raised teenagers knows that there comes a time, a tipping-point of sorts, when you become acutely aware of how fast the door is closing. Every day that you get to have them home with you is like gold - and Sundays at home together seem to double-down in that respect. It’s not all unicorns and rainbows, of course, but when you suddenly realize that everyone who warned you, “It goes so fast!” was telling the truth, trivial matters, well, just don’t matter. Instead, time spent with them feels like putting memories in the bank that you know all too soon you’ll be wanting - needing - to withdraw. Even as I type these blurry words I can’t believe it’s already time to consider these things.

My son buttered the hell out of that toast, by the way. We recently switched to Kerrygold butter and he’s very enthusiastic about it. I mean, who can blame him, it’s bloody delicious. But there we were, my three sons, my husband, and I, at the table eating butter-logged toast, the sound of my past drifting through my ears, the sight of my future spread before my eyes.

I said to my sons, “Boys, promise me that someday when you are grown and on your own, on lazy Sundays, you will play James Taylor and cook breakfast for your family, or friends, or whomever you’re with, and think of me.”

Two of them said, “We will mom! We promise!” Finn (the Toastmaster) simply said, “I will if I can, but I don’t know how to cook eggs. I love you mom.”

And just like that, braless Bloody Marys lost a little bit of their shimmer.

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Nicole Emmi

“Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.” - William Wordsworth

Though my twenty-year-old self would never have believed it, these days I am (at least in part) a sentimental, suburbanite, soccer mom. That means I’m awash in the wonder, challenge and hilarity involved in raising three boys and preparing to launch them out into the world. I’m also the lucky wife of the best man I’ve ever known, Dennis, and step-mother to his three teenaged daughters. So while I’ve always been passionate about writing and have done so in various forms and outlets throughout my life, the current ‘breathings of my heart’ center around my role as Carol Brady to our blended family. (No, we don’t have an Alice. Yes, I wish we did - mostly for laundry, and perhaps the occasional pot roast served with a side of simple, sage advice.)

Simultaneously, ‘Mr. Brady’ and I are both working full time (he in law enforcement, I in the dental field) and also focusing on what we’d like to be busy with once our brood has flown the nest. For me, the answer unquestionably involves writing. I am currently chipping away at my first novel and have already made copious notes on it’s sequel. I look forward to someday having the time to flesh out all of my ideas! I’d also like to return to travel writing at some point. In the meantime, I’m content to just enjoy the journey. Busy family life provides me lots of food for thought and writing inspiration. Sometimes it’s comical, sometimes (way) less so, but it is always an new adventure. And as it turns out, the passion, conviction and sentiment involved in being a parent is terrific fuel for the creative process.

When I’m not playing chauffeur, chef, maid and child psychologist to our “six-pack,” I try to take the advice of author Joseph Campbell to ’follow your bliss’ - those things that make you, as he puts it, “feel the rapture of being alive.” Besides writing, I tend to find my bliss in things like meditation, macro photography, hiking and backpacking, volunteerism, and traveling with my husband - preferably somewhere I can bury my feet in warm sand and sit by the ocean.