Book of Days: Sunday

Child,
Sundays are the only day of the week into which alarm clocks may not intrude. And sleep we do, sometimes, like today, until 10:30. We were up too late last night, watching Six Feet Under. I have been told that sleep and time for watching movies will soon be lost to us, but we are enjoying them now.

All I do is make the eggs, but I get credit for Sunday's breakfast. So it's eggs scrambled with soy cheese, chicken sausage, cinnamon toast and fruit. Tiny local cantaloupes are a Sunday favorite, but the blueberries make our eyes water. We eat slowly and plan the day.

Your Mom moves gingerly these days. Her hips ache, perhaps with the weight of you or from a muscle pulled at the gym. We don't go as far these days, but we don't seem to mind. We visit Costello's and eat scones and tiny chocolate-coconut-creamy things. I know, I know, we just had a huge breakfast; Sundays are for sleep and food and gathering in. You will grow up with a long line of Sunday rituals.

I am distracted by football on the TV, soccer beamed in from France. Your Mom makes me focus. Together we make a picture of the future. It's truly a picture, a drawing of three years from now. You are at the heart of this picture; it's about where you live and who surrounds you. It's about how we want our family to grow. We live on the east coast and you can play with your cousins and see your grandparents on the weekends and more. It's about the kind of work we do because it's important and because you should see work as a creative and meaningful endeavor, not as drudgery or the selling off of precious life.

It's a good picture and I hope you grow up in it.

Inspired by other ideas, we swing by the library and raid the shelves: books about making books and Steve Earle's El Corazon CD.

Grocery shopping is an eternal part of our Sunday rituals. Surprisingly, we have winnowed down our Sunday grocery trips to one quick run to the pricey organic store. We cruise the samples (dijon mustard and blueberry-flavored bifidus enzymes) and grab a handful of items. The new bagging clerk is a knucklehead. K- and I debate whether bagging ability falls under the rubric of common sense.

I sneak out on Sunday afternoons and go the climbing gym. Sometimes I feel silly climbing fake rocks indoors, but as soon as I touch my hand to the wall the world slips away from me. I know holding still is the right way to meditate, but taichi, yoga and all the other sanctioned forms of calming the mind fail me. I got to be moving and it seems if I'm bodily at risk, I'm right where I belong. I spend my time in the bouldering room, climbing short, intense routes that don't require ropes and pulleys and partners to catch your falls. Mats are good for that.

I leave the gym and am struck by my good life. I feel great and grateful for this day, sun shining after Saturday's prescient rainfall. I feel strong and alive, poor and ambitious, ready for everything and anything. The promise of you fills my thoughts everyday.

While I was at the gym, your Mom sent your grandparents ideas and info about visiting you.

Sundays are nap days. And then dinner. Sleep and food and gathering in.

After dinner we drift off into our private orbits. I do laundry and work stuff. Your Mom fusses around and plans her week. Later we sit together and eat treats. We draw up a contract of sorts. It has terms and conditions that instruct us to eat pie with friends and write books next weekend. It reminds me to sleep. This, of course, is negotiable.

I'll rest my hand gently across you in minutes.

Good night.

Pa-