The Sunday pause

Sunday is like the pause between weekend and work, between exhale and inhale. In front of my outdoor dominical breakfast that consists of fruit, chocolatine and coffee, followed by my morning journaling, I start to think about the week that passed and the new one ahead.

I retrace the different expressions of make do, or ''faire avec'' (like I shared in another blogpost in French, and yet another one, ''On the Fly''), whether it is using a tea bag twice, rediscovering a night gown I wore in my twenties with a tear in the back (no problem, I can easily mend that), cutting oversized sanitary pads in two to make them last longer (my ex had bought three bags of those pre-separation, and they were as big as if I was weighing three times my actual weight, so I have been moving them to three different houses, wondering what to do with them...), trying to remember the last time I actually bought trash bags (I have been using the empty bags of chips, lettuce, apples etc for my mini-wastebaskets for over two years now),  or rekindling an old friendship with an abandoned paperback instead of buying a new book. The opportunities to make do are unlimited and so satisfying.

I also finally found the inspiration to display the garland of white hearts offered by my friend Renée for my birthday. So it has been laying atop the fireplace, victim of my total lack of inspiration to hang them without damaging the mantel, for over 7 months. As I was doing other artwork using the elements (twigs, rocks...), I thought about putting many of the colorful pebbles I have in my backyard in two jars as weights for the yarn of this beautiful rosary of hearts. Ta-da ! I must say I am pleased with the effect, the hearts being like a huge smile and its whiteness cutting a bit the overwhelming and draining black.

It seems like time flows differently on Sundays, as if to allow the pause for gratitude, and for the replay of good moments, in anticipation of my week. The upcoming one has another significant anniversary. A few weeks ago, I had to come up with a ritual of closure for the anniversary of meeting my ex-spouse. In a few days, I will need to create some form of celebration to replace the wedding anniversary that is no longer, and my first as officially divorced woman. I feel like I need a transformed ritual to cope with potentially difficult emotions, and hopefully the ones that will remain will be made of gratitude for life lessons, as painful as they felt, not to mention gratitude for having had three beautiful sons, the best thing this marriage offered to my soul. Should this former wedding anniversary morph into my own personal, observed holiday, the Day of Misunderstanding ? Because this is what this whole matrimony was about: naively, at 31, I thought marriage was more an official way for two people to proclaim to the world their mutual love. A celebration of love, nothing else ! It turns out it is a contract, and I learned years later that marriage has its roots in patriarchy and that we cannot institutionalize love, like Krishnamurti said so well. 

We need to rethink the experience of love, and our own relationship to the concept of romance. Maybe I will dedicate the old anniversary to a form of neo-romanticism, or Study of Divine Love. Who wants to celebrate with me ?