Do something different on Sunday

To do something different on Sunday was once a long held habit of mine. The idea of keeping holy the Sabbath, deeply engrained, meant the day always began with Mass in the parish church. After that, the days unfolded gently.

My memories of childhood Sundays, especially after the end of World War II, include fun outings with my parents and sister to the beach, drives to local sites of interest, picnics and being with friends. Dad often made the evening meal, always simple and often fun, such as cinnamon toast, nothing else.

As the single working mother of a large family, I tried to keep the Sunday tradition. I tried to do something different, something to set the day apart from the working week for myself and the kids. After housework (and sport) Saturdays, we went to the beach, picnicked and visited friends.

Why I like to do something different on Sundays

Later, living alone meant I took up fun-filled Sundays with renewed vigor. I read Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. She urges people who want to live creative lives to take regular ‘artist’s dates.’ There’s more here.

She says that an artist’s date consist of a couple of hours a week of me-time when a person does a planned activity by themselves, for pleasure’, to ‘fill the well of creativity’. What better day than Sunday to do something different?

Retirement woes

But for far too long, after retirement, I let lapse the idea of Sundays being special, although I still went to Mass. In retirement, days often seem the same. It takes effort to maintain habits and routines.

Oddly, I always cleaned and shopped on Thursday. I also wrote a blog on Sunday. Looking back, that was my something special, some time carved out for myself.

Reinstating special Sundays

Thank goodness, old habits die really hard, especially when they’ve been valuable for decades. Helped by re-reading the Artist’s Way and Sarah Ban Breathnach’s Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy, I’m taking up my old practice.

Cameron urges people wishing to live creative lives to enjoy artist’s dates. Ban Breathnach exhorts women who want to live happy lives to keep their own Sabbath. She says:

This is what the Sabbath is for: reverence, rest, renewal, rejuvenation, reassuring rituals, recreation, rejoicing, remembering how much you have to be grateful for, and saying ‘thank you’.

The ideas of these two amazing women together seem irrestistible.

Do something different – the invitation

Yesterday, I chose to do something different. Although it may not have been the most fun-filled thing I’ve done, I enjoyed myself. After Mass, I caught a train at my local station, Subiaco. Not just any train, I do that often. But the one to the Perth Airport.

The trainline goes through the city, and took 28minutes. Trains run every 20 minutes.

The Perth train network, called Metronet, has been growing steadily, at a cost so far of $13.5 billion. It covers much of the Metropolitan area. The government anticipates that stations will attract high density housing and other developments closeby.

The link to the Airport opened in October, 2022. Many of my friends and family have used it. I was yet to visit.

Many surprises

Here are a few of the things that surprised me.

• How few people wer on the station and in the terminal. It was lunchtime on Sunday. But so few.
• The enormity of the project and the buildings.
• The vision and planning involved to create such spaces.
• The greyness. An architect once told me that public spaces can be neutral. Dull even, because colour comes from the people who use the spaces. That didn’t happen yesterday.
• The distance between the station and the actual terminal was enormous, covered a large part of the parking area below, and at such a height. The lifts covered four stories from the underground station to the travellator to the terminals.

About this experience

A good experience.

• I pretended I was travelling to some exotic, faraway place – Bangkok, Paris, Tokyo – somewhere different from home. Pretending is often as good as the real thing.
• Everything was new, and I absorbed the atmosphere and the fun and novelty
• Everyone I saw had a story and I could make up whatever I liked about them. They’ll seep into my writing.
• I’m impressed with my hometown and the innovation of train stations built on to existing facilities.

I’d love to read your comments about artist’s dates, doing something different on Sunday, the Sabbath, the new railway – anything you care to commen on.

Thank you for reading.