On a Sunday

Sunday walks are my favorite walks. I love walking on any day of the week, but particularly on Sundays. People seem friendlier. Yards look better kept. Cars drive slower. Dogs bark softer. I'm fully prepared to accept the fact that all of this is in my mind. It's as though everyone in the city, myself included, has gotten the questionable stuff out of their system over the weekend and is thinking about the week ahead as they water their gardens or watch their kids play or chat with their neighbor or heat up the coals, and have no time to give much thought to the strange lady walking alone at sunset down the sidewalk. As though we all - both them and me - believe that no harm can come to us on a Sunday. Maybe it's a remnant of my days in Sunday school surfacing, giving me a false sense of security on the holy day. Every other day of the week, I wish I had a more obvious reason for walking. A dog. A bag of groceries. A flashy camera. A casserole to deliver. Anything to answer the questions that I imagine arising in the minds and the eyes around me. On Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, I feel like I'm slightly somehow inadvertently propositioning every thing that I walk by. I sense sideways glances and pauses in low-toned weekend-business discussions. Like I, despite my calm appearance, could potentially do or say something to get the party started at any second. Or maybe they just need to say something to me, then I'll get the party started. I scurry past each person, each group, purposeful and with a set jaw, till I'm well out of party-starting range. On Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, I feel kind of creepy when I walk. Like parents get one look at me and call their kids in for dinner, in where it's safe from the strange lady walking down the street alone. Dogs don't seem to trust me on those days, either. Trotting away with their ears low, ready to nip at the weirdo who just wants to give them a pat. Neighbors watch me walk by, noticing my resemblance to the menacing character on the "neighborhood watch" signs posted all over the place, the one with the pointy black hat and cape and a large red X over it. I've always wondered how those signs work. Do people in a neighborhood really get together and say to each other "let's watch out for one another and show those bad guys they can't mess with any of us...'cause if they mess with one neighbor, they mess with the whole neighborhood!" and then they cheer and hoist their signs high in the air and go around, together as neighbors, and plant those signs. Frightening the bad guys and the strange ladies. I hope that's how they work. I feel none of these hidden, and probably mostly imagined, thoughts from people on a Sunday. All I sense from people on a Sunday, if I sense anything at all, is "I hope nothing bad happens to that nice lady walking down the street alone." That's all I sense in the smiles, nods, waves, and good evenings. Enough to make a strange lady's heart soar and to make walking every day of the week worth it.