The hammock went up under the bigger of our two pecan trees in May, a cotton one with a wooden spreader bar that Ben's brother gave us years ago and that had lived, rolled up and forgotten, in the shed. Ben strung it between the pecan and a sturdy post he set by the fence. On Sunday afternoons now, that hammock is where you will find whoever got there first, and lately it has mostly been me.
This summer we started doing something that sounds too simple to write about: we leave Sunday afternoons completely unplanned. No errands, no projects, no outings, no list. Just the hours between lunch and supper, open.
How it started
We had been treating weekends like a second workweek. Saturday was the farmers market, the hardware store, the grocery run, the lawn. Sunday was everything that did not fit on Saturday. By Sunday night we were tired in a way that did not feel like rest.
One week in late May, Ben said he did not want to do one single thing after lunch. I said fine, neither do I. Lila, who was six and confused, asked what we were going to do instead. I told her I did not know. That turned out to be the most interesting answer either of us had given her in months.
What actually happens
Without a plan, the afternoons sort themselves. A few things come up again and again.
Napping, unapologetically
June in Orangeburg is hot and heavy by two o'clock, and the screened porch with the ceiling fan going is the best place to be. Ben naps on the old wicker settee with a ball cap over his face. Pepper naps on the porch floor, as close to the fan's draft as she can get. I usually read, and then I usually nap too, with the book open on my chest.
Odd little projects
Lila invents things to do. Last Sunday she built a "restaurant" out of the porch furniture and served us imaginary pancakes and real cups of water. The week before, she spent an hour sorting the buttons from my sewing tin by color. These are not activities anyone would schedule. They only appear when nobody is in charge.
Slow walks
Once the heat breaks a little, around five, we sometimes walk the block with Pepper. Nobody is trying to get anywhere. We stop to look at a neighbor's tomato plants, a dragonfly on a mailbox, the clouds stacking up over the tree line the way they do before an afternoon storm.
Storms
Summer storms here roll in most afternoons, sudden and loud. We have started treating them as entertainment. Everyone on the porch, lights off, watching the rain come sideways through the screen and the pecans whip back and forth. Lila counts between the lightning and the thunder. Pepper retreats under the settee and stays there.
A few loose rules
It is not entirely without structure. We found we needed a handful of agreements to keep it from sliding back into a chore day.
- No errands after lunch. If we forgot milk, we drink something else.
- No house projects. The gutter can wait. It always has.
- Nobody has to entertain anybody. This includes Lila. She can join us, or not.
- Supper is easy. Leftovers, sandwiches or something from the freezer. Cooking a big meal at the end would undo the afternoon.
What surprised me
I expected to feel restless, and for the first couple of weeks I did. I kept noticing everything that needed doing: a scuffed baseboard, a cluttered drawer, weeds in the bed by the shed. By the fourth Sunday, I noticed them and let them be. They were still there Monday morning, and I dealt with them then, a little more cheerfully.
The other surprise is what it did to the rest of the week. Knowing that Sunday afternoon is coming, untouched, makes Saturday's errands feel lighter. There is an end to them.
And Lila has started guarding the afternoon like a treasure. A friend's mother called last Sunday to ask about a playdate, and Lila, overhearing, whispered urgently that it was "do-nothing day." We moved the playdate to Saturday.
This past Sunday was the hottest yet. The thermometer on the porch said 96 by three o'clock. I took the hammock early, before anyone else could claim it, and lay there in the dappled shade with the cicadas grinding away overhead, watching the leaves move against the sky. I did not read. I did not plan. At some point Lila climbed in beside me, and the two of us swung slowly until supper, and I could not tell you one thing we talked about. I do remember thinking that I would not trade it for anything on my list.
