Saturday Mornings Bring Memories and Promise

Saturday mornings always feel different than any other morning of the week.  I have a recurring memory that flashes back to me often when I wake up on a sunny Saturday, it takes me back more than 35 years to my first apartment in North Amherst.  I have a gauzy image of myself sitting in a rocking chair with the sun streaming into my room at the back of the big two-family on North Pleasant St, reading the Daily Hampshire Gazette sipping coffee brewed in my little red percolator.

I had the day off, after a week of working the night shift at Pro Brush in Florence. I would trudge to work for the 11 pm to 7 am shift, and spend most of my time off trying to re-adjust my circadian rhythms to sleeping in the daytime. I sat there in the sun and had that whole day to do whatever I wanted, and it was like having a reservoir of time, and a luxury of leisure just for that day.

Saturdays still see me waking full of promise and excitement, thinking about chores and obligations but also moments of fun that I can slip in. My dad was always a Saturday putterer, I remember when he attached a nail to the bottom of a broomstick and used it to stab litter in the ditch. Dad was always working on  some sort of project on Saturdays, fixing up the barn, replacing broken boards in our fences, and repairing things, endlessly having to paint something.

I love Saturdays because of the promise that it delivers….a day of leisure yet a day of productive chores. A day when the time slows down, not as much as Sunday, but still, not as pulsing as the weekdays, with people rushing to work. A sunny Saturday means a chance to catch up with everything on the list, and to try and get it all done. And no matter how late I stay up on Saturday night, there’s a nice cushy back-up day, Sunday, waiting in the wings.