sunday bliss

Sunday - you typically feel more laid-back as the pace of life slows down. Unless you join the throngs in town, in the hustle and bustle of city living, the residential suburbs can be a good place to spend some peaceful moments. If you pause during the weekdays, take a deep breath and survey the neighbourhood, you probably would realise that Monday, Tuesday or the rest of the week is no different from Sunday. But boy, does Sunday make a whole lot of difference! The air smells somwhat fresher; the road below with the same trees lining its sides looks less busy; and the nondescript playground, the street soccer court - in fact, the entire park - they seem to exude a lovely serenity, seeing it alone from the balcony of your flat cheers you up and calms your mind.

Admittedly, the hot Sunday afternoon can really kill your spirits. Add to that the lack of good programmes on TV during this time, and you may find your Sunday spent at home to be a chore; or a complete waste of the most important day of the week - which you will lament when the day draws to a close and you are confronted with pre-Monday blues. The thing is to keep yourself occupied during the early afternoon, like reading a book and surfing the net or maybe meeting up with some friends for coffee or other leisure activities. But always stay away from the claustrophobic town.

In the late afternoon/evening however, this is the best time to enjoy your Sunday at home or in your neighbourhood without feeling a grudge. You usually don't get to enjoy this part of the day on other days because chances are - if you are a regular 8 to 5 worker, that is - you will be travelling or just knocking off from work. As such, during the week you won't bother to pay attention to the surroundings or appreciate your abode because you simply are too tired. Even meeting your neighbours or trudging past other residents in the area - who are also trudging their way home - is dreadful and hopefully avoidable. And if you had a lousy day at work or in school, everything else becomes oblivious of your attention because you made a conscious effort to shut your mind.

Sunday is different. There's no rushing home from work, no ceaseless movements of returning folks filling every possible space in the neighbourhood, no foul mood and, most important, no tired spirits. Because you are in a completely relaxed and easy mood, you are able to take greater notice of things around you, things which are inconsequential but have a beauty of their own - things which otherwise usually escape your attention. For example, as dusk approaches the sun seems also aware that this is Sunday and not other days, for it seems no hurry to retire for the day and then doing so in an unobtrusive way. The afternoon heat gives way to mild sunshine whose luxuriant rays now provide warmth, not a source of irritant. As the breeze makes contact with your skin, you feel positively refreshed and upbeat. There is less traffic on the roads and fewer people in the streets (as everyone is at their home or their parents or grandparents' home eating dinner), all of which make for a pleasant and serene atmosphere, so much so that it would be a pity not to get out of home and take a stroll outside. It is of course really because on a Sunday you should have little or no work, that you are in the perfect state of mind to be able to pause and enjoy such ordinary details. You are grateful for the fact that in the human calendar, at least a day each week - for most people in any case - is set aside not for work.

I like my Sunday evenings best, because this is when life comes closer to being simpler and idyllic. It is when i get to appreciate the otherwise sterile neighbourhood during most part of the week. When the day first gradually fades and then almost imperceptibly transits into night, i feel most content and suffused with a sense of optimism. It is as if every unpleasant feeling and negative thought, at least for that brief period, has dissipated with the sun's vanishing rays.

Going out on Sundays to the malls or meeting with friends and relatives are fine. These are the activities that often have to be done on a Sunday, the only day of the week that seems to afford us time to do a dozen things that are not work related and which can't be done during the busy week. But they are not worth it if at the end of the day you feel drained and tired - no different from the rest of the week. One would want a good day of rest before one enters the new week of work with all the inane and insane that comes along with the frenetic pace of life.

A few more hours and this Sunday would be officially the past. But that would mean i have the next Sunday to look forward to.