Saturdays

For most of my undergraduate life, Saturdays were not really Saturdays.  I was the opener at my job, which meant rising at four forty-five so I could be at work by five-thirty to unlock the doors and set up the front counter area before the doors opened at six thirty.  I usually worked until eleven on Friday nights and I worked until three in the afternoon on Saturday, so I was exhausted and regularly slept the remainder of the afternoon.

When an extended illness caused me to leave for several months, I rediscovered the beauty of the Saturday morning, the day where you don't burst from sleep at the buzz or ring of an alarm and you can actually cook breakfast and sip your coffee.

I've had a lot more Saturdays since I quit that job and don't quite appreciate them as much.  But sometimes during the week (okay, quite often these days, because I don't have a job), I'll have a day that feels like Saturday.  It's free, open, and full of potential.  I can spend the morning in the kitchen or with a novel and the afternoon browsing the internet for inspiration, making things, or (occasionally) shopping slowly and thoughtfully.  I can savor the light in my grandparents' kitchen and the dancing of the sun and shadows on the garden in the backyard.  Now that we live near family, I can enjoy tea with Oma or dinner with my mom, dad, and sister in the evening.

So today is Tuesday, but I'm making it a Saturday, and stocking up on the inspiration and joyfulness that Saturdays can bring so that I have a good store of it when life starts getting busy again.