Here, in New England, you can come close on a weekday, but it has to be in the dead of winter, with sixteen inches of snow, a wind chill advisory, and a few words from the governor about how dangerous it is out there.
But in October, any given Sunday is about as good as it gets.
I live on a dead end street, but even at that it's quieter than normal.
The peaks and valleys of the houses which barricade me from the busy street a quarter mile away somehow transmit the sounds of the cars going by. It's not annoying. In fact it keeps me from becoming a paranoid wreck.
I like to hear life.
But a Sunday is like a negative of the rest of the days of the week.
The pleasantly constant whirr, interspersed by stillness, is reversed.
My neighbors, instead of leaving in the morning for work and coming home at four or five, oftentimes don't leave the house until the evening.
Yes, I have the windows open today; it's that nice. Hopefully, me writing this will remind me to shut them before nightfall.
After I post this, I'm going to go do a bit of house painting.
It's not my forte, but the whole band is doing it for our friend, confidante, and unflagging supporter, Chuck, who has let us rehearse in his doublewide trailer for the last three years.
Chuck is one of the good people; he gives me hope here amongst monsters.
But his house ... we're painting it white.
The leaves, I'm sure, will be nonplussed.
Either that, or they will be grateful that it's not going to be maroon, or brown, or yellow, or any other color that might cover up their autumnal majesty.
Man, I sure give a lot of my own internal mental characteristics to the products of nature who cannot willingly defend themselves and say ... "That guy's crazy ... we're not anything like that."
But they can't, and so I do.
Either way, shortly, I'm going to get in my car and drive down my street and over to Florence where he lives.
The people in my neighborhood that I will pass will no doubt be out raking leaves or chopping wood. Some will have their children with them; they won't have to be at school. They won't be learning from a book covered in protective brown paper, emblazoned with a president's face on it in cheap red ink on one side, and the pledge of allegiance on the other like I remember from my days of public school books. They won't be trying to fit the cursive letter "Q" in between two solid lines, and on top of one dotted line, on an off-green sheet of paper like I remember (oh, how I hated Q ... it's one of the main reasons I, to this day, only write in cursive when I sign my name). They won't be eating lunch from a bag or defending their parent's honor from one of the many malcontents which are an unfortunate eventuality in our world, both in school and in the real world.
Because it is Sunday.
And I will drive slower than normal because the kids may be playing close to the street.
The cars will be fewer as I approach the busy thoroughfare.
It will seem like three in the morning ... only in the middle of the day.
There will be plenty of parking downtown.
Not only that, but it will be free.
I'll get to do that thing that I do that I love so much when I see a person from out of town staring at the meter machine trying to figure out if they have to pay for parking (they don't make it clear so you'll just pump it full of quarters anyway) and I'll get to tell them, confidently, "You don't have to pay to park today."
Because it's Sunday.
The banks can't stress you out.
The post office can't politely, efficiently, and officially contain you, with your potential communication in hand, patiently waiting in line both because you were raised right, and because of that thing you heard about postal workers.
And everyone just seems a bit more relaxed.
Maybe they just came from church.
Maybe they just came from a meeting.
Maybe they just kissed a newfound lover goodbye after spending a few precious hours or days together, and are now heading out, regrettably but contentedly alone, to try to find the increasingly familiar signs which point to the interstate, realizing at that moment, how many times they have done this in the past, and wondering how many more are to come.
Maybe they have finally come to the realization that they have to do the right thing, regardless of the consequences.
Maybe.
But one cannot deny, from either a glance at the calendar, the hurried and choppy sounds of a football announcer from a passing car radio, the parking spaces, blackened storefronts, or unhurried stroll of a population on the verge of a new week ...
... it's Sunday.
Don't let it get away, but when in does, know that it will be back soon.
It has no choice.
It has no equal regardless of the fact that it is as long as the six days that come before it.
It just seems easier to hang onto.
And that makes me happy.
There is nothing like a Sunday.
Thanks for reading.
F.A.J.
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