Aloha Weekend, what shall we do today?
I often imagine that The Weekend is another person, or another relationship I have to/want to weave into my life. It’s never suited my Type A personality (or palena ‘ole coaching) to think of weekends as the days most normal people consider days ‘off,’ and it’s only been in recent years that I’ve been at all deliberate about shaping The Weekend into something else of relationship caliber, and a better alternative that would keep it special. Hō‘imi Interesting versus Easy To Ignore.
My parents had Monday through Friday types of jobs, but I don’t remember us doing much on weekends as a family. Saturdays and Sundays represent a big fat ‘church-ness’ in my growing up memories, and it was a good thing for me (though of course I didn’t see it that way back then.)
Living With The Pope
When I was growing up, ours was a family that went to church every Sunday without fail. My dad was the one we thought of as “the holy one” and we’d all call him “the Pope” when we were sure he couldn’t hear us (my mom was the one that started it).
For as long as I can remember, my mom was the one that did the flowers for the church every Saturday afternoon, and I honestly think that Sunday mornings were more of a vanity fix for her as the entire congregation “ooh”d and “aah”d over them. She deserved the accolades; she also had (still has) an extraordinary talent for fashioning any kind of flower a bride would choose into bouquets for weddings, and all was done in her volunteer time as her hobby.
That’s me and my dad at my wedding, and yes, my mom did the bouquet.
Dad made Sundays sacred. You wouldn’t describe them as a “day of rest” though; he kept us all busy. They were sacred in that they were about our faith, and about ‘ohana, our family, and about generally being as good as we could possibly be for the entire day. Sunday was the day that you made up for any slip-ups or indiscretions in the week before, and you fortified your character for the week ahead.
We also thought of Sunday as a kind of neighborhood and community day, for that was when ho‘omāka‘ika‘i; we went visiting. It was the day we’d get lectures on things like citizenship, civic duty and social responsibility, or charity, patriotism and history.
Sunday was the day that we learned values from our parents, just as they had learned them from their parents. We had modest scoops of value-learning every day, but Sunday was the day it came in droves, and you better be able to take it all in.
~ from some older writing on my old MWAC blog
In contrast, I fear weekends may be a big fat nothing for my own children” I don’t want to ask them because selfishly, I don’t want to hear the answer.
Hubby and I have never had Monday through Friday jobs. Our days off were whenever business was slowest, and never, ever the holidays, for those were when business was booming. It’s still like that for him. As for me, you run into a similar 7-day sweep when you’re self employed and mostly work from home, for working is something you never stop doing — and that’s honestly not a problem for me” it’s sort of like discovering that 6 or even 7 smaller health snacks during the day are actually better for you than those conventional 3 meals a day which leave you fat and yearning for naps instead of workouts.
However, blaming jobs and work habits is a cop-out. Both can change, if you choose to change them.
So these days, in coaching myself to shape better habits and be healthier mana‘o, kino, ‘uhane (mind, body, and spirit) I’m feeling a ma‘alahi calling back to making the weekends special in some way, and to forcing their separateness. (Best I can describe it, ma‘alahi invokes simplicity, and a calm persuasion toward contentment, even when it may require some kind of feels-right disruption at first to break inertia, for ease is a part of ma‘alahi too” so many western words for just one Hawaiian one!)
I’ve no definite plan in mind, other than wayfinding, and finding some other time to do my chores (which are still chores, though downsizing has gotten cooler). You?
That sounds good Rosa, play instead.
For starters, you can get outside…
Lovingly,
The Weekend
