Sunday Traditions

Some families get together for Sunday dinner. Some go to church. There is folklore of a time when families went for Sunday afternoon drives – back before economic and environmental crises nearly prohibited it.

Me, I’ve taken to Sunday evening strolls around my block. Yeah, maybe it’s because I am a 70-year-old woman trapped in a 24-year-old’s body…if only my cat were with me. But it was born of coincidental necessity to go out for one reason or another on a Sunday evening when I first moved here – to find a place that sold the Sunday paper, to find a grocery store, to buy some chocolate – but even when it was out of necessity, I still ended up meandering a bit longer than needed, despite the bitter cold. It’s nice on a Sunday evening to walk around in the city. It’s quiet, not that my neighborhood is ever bursting with energy (thank God, this 70-year-old 20-something wouldn’t stand for that), but there are fewer students, fewer lights, fewer open stores.

There’s something about the emptiness that attracts me to the nights on Sundays. It’s peaceful and discomforting and mysterious. You walk by the brownstone with lace curtains and notice for the first time that there are two stuffed pigs in one of the window sills and stop for just a second before shaking your head and continuing on your wander. You discover that you live a block from a retirement home, and frat row. You realize that the hospital across the street is actually pretty creepy - or at least that the gorgeous old building that was probably a wing for, I don’t know, TB patients that they don’t use anymore in light of the new modern facilities, is pretty creepy. You notice, that yeah, my street is cute (as pointed out by my dear friend, Lora, who google-street-view stalked me) with its rows of stoops and bay windows painted green and yellow and purple, all homes now occupied by students and young professionals (or maybe that’s just me). And the Chinese restaurant on the corner, whose only redeeming quality is that it only accepts cash, otherwise I’d be gaining weight by the day!

It is cute, and it has potential, but in the light of day, when I walk to and from work or on my way to wherever else I go, I don’t appreciate its qualities. On a Sunday night though, there’s nothing else to distract me from it. Most times, I just see its empty store fronts a couple of blocks up or the schools on either side of the road. But on Sundays, everything’s empty and the schools are just buildings – not work or students. So instead of staying in and being restless, which leads me to some “necessary” outing for the newspaper or chocolate, instead of pining for my animals or missing my friends and family on a Sunday evening, I walk a few blocks in the cold and take in my beautifully sparse neighborhood.

Dunkin' Donuts are quickly becoming a Sunday habit as well, one that should be swiftly broken!