Living well / Essay
The quiet luxury of a Sunday without a plan
Somewhere between the errands and the next week’s list, there is a day that could belong to you. What happens when you leave a little of it undecided?
A free Sunday can start to look surprisingly busy once you begin planning how to enjoy it. There is a walk to fit in, something to cook, a place to visit and, almost inevitably, a small domestic job that has followed you from Friday.
But an afternoon can also remain partly blank. You might read until you want to stop, call someone without an agenda or take your coffee back to bed. The day does not have to become a story worth telling.
Leave a little unclaimed
Try choosing just one thing you would like to do, then leaving space around it. A lunch with a friend can be the occasion rather than the first stop on a route through the day.
Unplanned time does not require perfect weather or an empty house. It might be twenty minutes when nobody needs an answer and you do not immediately look for something useful to do.
An ordinary day can be enough
There will be weekends with obligations and weekends that run away from you. This is not a new rule for spending them correctly. It is simply permission to enjoy an afternoon without asking it to improve your life.
If all you remember on Monday is the book, the coffee and the sound of rain, that sounds like a Sunday worth having.
