On Sunday Mornings Such As This One

23 October, 2011

On Sunday mornings such as this one, I find myself wondering what other Sundays will be like.

Woke up late, turned over, fell back asleep. Woke up again, lay there thinking about family and friends—what I plan to do when I get home.

A good friend called while I was still in bed, and before I knew it I found myself laughing … deep, full, belly laughs. Every morning, perhaps, should start off with belly laughs, but on Sundays they are especially nice.

We talked about our hopes for the future, about our travel plans once our Peace Corps services end—we talked about girls, too. Talking about girls on Sunday mornings such as this one also somehow just feels better. Clearer, perhaps. More coherent.

Got out of bed at last, left my room and said hello to my darlin’ little host sister, already busy sweeping the floor and cleaning the kitchen (poor little girl … her mom won’t let her have a Sunday morning such as mine).

Next came boiling water, a fresh bag of coffee, cleaning out yesterday’s grinds from the French press. Pancake batter. Hot oil.

On Sunday mornings such as this one, I remember Sunday mornings past: the making of pancakes now somehow links this morning to all those Sunday mornings when Mom would make pancakes, back in the good old days when the family all lived under one roof. I miss the expansive nature of those Sundays: the way they felt like a world unto themselves—long, luxurious and sweet. There was the safety of Dad with his newspapers, my big brother cursing at the television, my little sister and I trading barbs, bottomless mugs of coffee, fat cats baking on sunny windowsills.

My host mom, on this Sunday morning, steals one of my pancakes (with apologies)—I give her another, and tell her about how pancakes on Sundays remind me of home. I hope she doesn’t mind my sentimentality these days.

Not in spite of, but because of these echoes of the past, because of the fullness and small pleasures of my life with my host family in the present, on Sunday mornings such as these I find myself wondering what other Sundays will be like.

It is painful to say goodbye. The other night my host father, in a rare acknowledgment of my pending departure, jokingly asked me whether there was another American they could adopt to fill the gap I will leave when I go. It is painful to leave a place where you’ve been welcomed so graciously. Part of the wonder of these two years has been the unprecedented gift of being able to live as part of a family unit again—the opportunity to be an older brother to my two rambunctious host siblings. The rhythms of family life, here, have brought me back, time and time again, to life with my family in the US when I was young: the dinner smells and clinking pans that encircle you, lending the evening a sense of inclusion and fellowship; the screeching of my host mom in the mornings, reminding me of my own Mom’s persistent yells of warning from the base of the stairs as I tried, always in vain, to turn over and tune out an impending Monday full of classes; the whispering of parents in the kitchen, late at night, hinting at concerns outside the cocoon of protection afforded to kids with good moms and good dads.

There’s a wild, sometimes terrifying faith that comes along with Sunday mornings such as this one—a faith that life will continue to be filled with family, with richness and depth, with challenges that circle out from you in ever-widening orbit, while inside you tide after tide of memory crashes back upon the beaches of your awareness, providing some context and coherency to the ceaseless rush of moments.

On Sunday mornings such as this one, I find myself wondering what other Sundays will be like.