Posted on 15 Sep, 2011 -
An Ode to the Week
“It was such a lovely day I thought it was a pity to get up.”
Somerset Maugham, Our Betters II
Why Monday is so different to Friday.
And what Thatcher, the Russians, the Norse and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy can tell us about our relationships with the days of the week
Dear Reader,
I was informed this morning by a carton of breakfast juice that Tuesday is the most productive day of the week.
Now, it’s not often that you get inspired by a juice carton but this idea set me thinking.
You see, I like the idea that each day of the week is different. That the week has its own rhythm.
We are creatures of habit. We take pleasure in rituals. Which is why I think we like to see the passing of each week as a special kind of cycle.
I also think it’s important to remember that not all days will be productive, or successful or even good. You will have days when you get great things done - others when you seem to have gone nowhere. Days that have felt long and days that have felt short.
As the artist Paul Klee once said, “A single day is enough to make us a little larger or, another time, a little smaller.”
But then there are also many days that just past by softly and pleasantly. As somebody once said, “like pearls off a string”.
In praise of the days. The rhythm of the week.
If I had more time on my hands, I would love to keep a diary. I would even be tempted to give each wonderful - or awful - day its own special name.
But as I am as time-pressed as the next woman and unable to indulge in such whimsical activities, I have assembled instead some thoughts on the different days of the weeks and the ways in which we pass them. Starting with these two great quotations about days and weeks in general…
“They (the days) come and go like muffled and veiled figures sent from a distant friendly party; but they say nothing, and if we do not use the gifts they bring, they carry them as silently away”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
“The day is committed to error and floundering; success and achievement are matters of long range”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... and moving on to some specific thoughts about the days of the week:
The Russian name for Monday is ‘ponedelnik’ which translates as ‘After “do-nothing”. And for me, personally, Monday has always felt like that. I like to be productive and I love Monday morning for the clean slate of time that is ready to be filled well and used up wisely.
I know that Monday is supposed to be the day that we dread. The day when we have to go back to work. The day when there are something like 20% more heart attacks than on any other.
In the Mamas and Papas song, Monday, Monday, Mama Cass sings: “Every other day of the week is fine- yeah! But whenever Monday comes, but whenever Monday comes, you can find me cryin’ all of the time”
But I’m with the American author, Sydney Harris on this: “When I hear somebody sigh, “Life is hard,” I am always tempted to ask, ‘Compared to what?’”
Stop your moaning, I say, and get down to business. Although another interesting fact I found about Monday is that the French used to call cars that turn out to be lemons “Monday Cars.”
Are more mistakes made on a Monday? I can’t be sure. But then that’s another good thing about Monday: there’s always Tuesday…
Tuesday as we’ve already learnt from my fruit juice, is the most productive day of the week.
As Margaret Thatcher said, “Look at a day when you are supremely satisfied at the end. It’s not a day when you lounge around doing nothing; it’s when you’ve had everything to do, and you’ve done it.”
I also like the idea that Tuesday is derived from ‘Tyr’s day’ - Tyr being the Norse god of heroic glory. So Tuesday is a heroic day, a day for glory…
It’s also a good day for phoning friends, catching up on the gardening or getting lots of jobs finished so that you can enjoy more freewheeling for the rest of the week.
Although of course, Wednesday - the ‘hump’ day - is traditionally the day after which you can freewheel downhill towards the weekend.
“These are not dark days.” said Winston Churchill, “These are great days - the greatest days our country has ever lived.”
And it seems right that in the Thai calendar, the colour that is associated with Wednesday is green.
That the colour orange is associated with Thursday also seems fitting.
There is a novel by John Steinbeck called ‘Sweet Thursday’. And Thursday is to me a sweet day. A quiet day. A gift day. A day for musing - or for energetic relaxing.
In The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, the character Arthur Dent says “This must be Thursday. I never could get the hang of Thursdays.” A few minutes later the planet Earth is destroyed by the Vogons to make room for an interstellar highway .
We cannot forget, of course, that Thursday is named after Thor, the Norse god of thunder. Also, since 1935, all general elections in the UK have been held on a Thursday.
Sweet and enigmatic but not to be underestimated…
Friday, oh Friday. A day to congratulate ourselves on what we have achieved during this week - and look forward to two days of fun and leisure.
In fact, I have just been reading that because Friday is connected with the planet Venus, it is associated with love, peace and relaxation - but also with emotional intensity and quashed dreams…
According to the Thai calendar, Saturday is a purple day. And I really like that.
I suffer too much from the sentiment expressed in this quotation from John Burroughs that I’m sure I’ve already shared with you:
“I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read, and all the friends I want to see.”
But this purple colour thing is good. Saturdays, perhaps, should be too magisterial for productivity, for getting things done. As kings wasted money on their regal purple gowns, time on a Saturday is there to be spent flippantly and for pleasure.
It is a wonderful fact that no century starts on a Sunday.
“It was a soft, reposeful summer landscape, as lovely as a dream, and as lonesome as Sunday.” said Mark Twain.
The Russian name for Sunday, voskresenye, means Resurrection. It is the day of the sun. The first day of the week - or for getting ready for the week. And whatever it means for you… whether it’s walks in the countryside, go-karting or Sunday roast - it has its own special role to play in your personal weekly rituals and rhythm.
I also found this interesting quote from the early 20th Century by Henry Louis Mencken who said:
“Sunday: A day given over by Americans to wishing that they themselves were dead and in Heaven, and that their neighbours were dead in Hell.”
It seems to me at least that we have come a long way since then. But we do, of course, still have a long way to go. Which is of course why we have…
... Mondays.
Best wishes
