Sunday Yearnings

I finished an e-mail to my sister this way:  "I hope all is well where you are. I imagine you having a leisurely Sunday, with pancakes and Bloody Marys and lovely jazz playing on the stereo, the dog snoozing, and the boys sleeping in."

Writing these words invoked such a sense of yearning in me.  I don't feel like I've had that kind of leisurely morning since Christmas break.  I can't remember the last time I've had a perfect pancake--or even an imperfect pancake.

These days, having a leisurely morning feels impossible.  These days, morning comes with competing demands:  get the exercise done before the sun clears the horizon to heat up the day while also getting the restocking of supplies (shopping) done before the stores get crowded while getting the writing done while also having time for spiritual reading while doing a bit of sketching.

Who has time for pancakes and jazz?

But maybe I should start paying more attention to my yearnings.  For months now, I haven't let myself think too much about my yearnings.  I said, "That way madness lies."  How can one yearn, when a pandemic ravages the globe and the economy explodes into sharp shards?

Some of my yearnings are impossible right now.  I want to go to a creativity and spirituality retreat like Create in Me, where we sing together and share art supplies and eat delicious meals that someone else has prepared on dishes that someone else will wash.  I want to meet my family at a mountain town where we can enjoy craft brews and rainbow trout.  I want to go to a farmer's market where I can find local tomatoes that taste the way they did when we picked them off my grandmother's tomato plant.

But some yearnings might be possible.  It might take a bit of planning.  I can't have Bloody Marys this morning:  I don't have the ingredients in the house, and I need to be at church in a few hours to do the drive through communion.

But with a bit of planning, I could take a day off work, I could take a morning off from the commitments, I could put jazz on the stereo, and I could make pancakes and breakfast cocktails with ingredients that I purchased in an act of foresight.