Sundays in the South when I was a child were the epitome of slow living. Instead of the heart-thumping, adrenaline-pumping brrring of an analog alarm clock, our house, whether it was the duplex in Nashville or our later forever home in Spartanburg, South Carolina, would awaken with gentler sounds: the soft thip thip of my father padding to the kitchen to make his morning coffee, or the percussive rat-tat, tat-tat of my mother’s knock at my bedroom door that meant breakfast was ready.
During the leanest years of my youth, when my parents worked as much as they could stand, we all survived on convenience snacks like Little Debbies and strong, hot Lipton tea during the week. Around middle school, my brother and I graduated to energy drinks, trying to keep up with the demands of homework and all the extracurricular activities adults assured us were critical for college admission. Sundays were a departure from all that, and the change of pace meant a proper breakfast. I would open my bedroom door to the savory scent of cooking fat from Roger Wood sausage or a thick slice of country ham. Depending on what was on sale that week, the adults had liver pudding or livermush. And depending on who cooked, there would be cinnamon rolls (Mom) or biscuits (Dad).
This was the leisurely time before the scramble to get dressed and out the door for Sunday school commenced, when I would holler, “Has anybody seen my stockings?” as my dad yelled, “Has anyone seen my left shoe?” After a little bickering, we would find ourselves in the pew, tightly embedded with our “church family.” Now that I am all grown up, I have come to understand that adulthood can be pretty lonely. During my early years, my parents were often stressed and isolated, far from home, and the only Black faces in their workplaces. After a punishing week of disappointments and microaggressions, sitting in a sanctuary surrounded by familiar faces reminded my mom and dad that they weren’t alone.
Faces upturned to sing, filling the church rafters with our praise, we heard testimonies about miracles, sermons about hope and deliverance. Some Sundays, the deacons pressured the preacher to wrap it up so everybody could be home before kickoff. Following the benediction, the pastor would turn the congregation out into the unpredictable, hostile world again.
We would hustle home to eat a roast or some other inexpensive cut of meat Mom had left simmering in the slow cooker, alongside mashed potatoes and fresh-cut green beans cooked just the way I like them, plump but still springy. Then we were meant to appreciate the printed word, whether in the form of newspapers that brought us the week’s coupons and obituaries (the main reasons we subscribed), or the latest fantasy book, which often ended up splayed across my chest as I fell asleep when the afternoon sun hit just right.
Other Sundays were even more special. When we moved to South Carolina, we would eat our afternoon church meal with Grandma Mary (paternal) or Grandma Artie Bell (maternal), and the size of the spread multiplied. Depending on the season and what was coming in from the fields, options ranged from butter peas to fresh creamed corn and collard greens after the first frost arrived. It seemed there was always something to celebrate.
When the midday meal was over, the kids would turn out into the yard, where you might find me in the cover of a shade tree, book still unread, catnap in progress. If I was allowed to stay in the house (usually to keep whatever fancy dress my mother had made clean), I kept my ear tilted toward the elders. That’s how I learned so many of our stories.
Then came the ravages of time. Our family unit shrank, and the big meals went away. In my twenties, as a broke college grad trying to survive in one of the most expensive metropolises in the world (New York City), I picked up every open shift at the library. That often meant working Sundays. In my thirties, my relationship with religion changed. I swapped large community worship services for a more intimate spiritual reflection. As I was increasingly pressed for time and overburdened, my task list slowly eroded what remained of my Sundays. What began with I’ll just run a couple errands became a day consumed with responding to emails and, once I became a teacher, grading. I submitted to a life planned out in fifteen-, thirty-, sixty-minute increments. I stole time from myself, not realizing what I’d done.
Trying to make a living made me forget. And our current 24/7 world didn’t help. Always reachable, always “on.” The mail carrier works Sundays now, too, delivering Amazon packages that just can’t seem to wait. But over the past year, everything accelerated. Even my little wanders in the woods became goal oriented—there was a plant I wanted to look for, a trek I needed to make for a story, and my curious meanderings fell by the wayside.
It finally hit me that time is not something I can make more of, no matter the productivity hack of the week. And that getting old is a privilege. Many of the talented women writers and classmates in my circle didn’t make it to forty or much past it. I wonder how many Sundays I’ve worked through in the last decade or so instead of spending time with loved ones, how many memory-making events I have missed.
So I have decided to take them back. To make Sundays, even the mundane ones, meaningful once more.
Now a good Sunday starts with a holy hush, a stillness that gains momentum as the daylight breaks. I glance out the window at the sunrise as I make my coffee, and shuffle to the kitchen table with a magazine. There is peace, but in those early hours, a kind of loneliness can also emerge. Nobody makes breakfast for me anymore, and all I have are memories of being cared for. Some mornings the weight of pressure and expectation feels especially heavy. Still, when things go right, I find what my parents were trying to achieve—agency and dominion over my day, over the part of my life I can manage.
To balance the quiet, I’ve also started inviting friends or family over for a meal, mostly fish fries instead of the multiple-side-dish spreads of my youth. We don’t watch the Sunday NFL games of yore, but we do play board games, Apples to Apples or Clue or Sorry! or UNO. (We avoid Monopoly and the Game of Life—even spending make-believe money makes those moments feel a little too…real.) But mostly these gatherings are a chance for us to eat a little hot fish, sip some strong sweet tea, and catch up with one another.
Even when anticipatory anxiety about the week ahead holds my brain hostage, or a work trip means a Sunday can’t proceed the way I want it to, I remind myself: new week, new mercies. I get the chance to try again. To keep showing up and choosing what nourishes my soul. If I am away and can’t make new memories, I turn the obligation of life on the road into an opportunity to call a friend who may not be able to make it to the house for Sunday dinner. And in my backyard, I’ve hung a hammock so I can once again get in some of those good catnaps in the afternoon sun, book in hand, as spring arrives.
Latria Graham is a Garden & Gun contributing editor from Spartanburg, South Carolina, and writes the magazine’s This Land column, which documents aspects of the natural world in the South. An assistant professor of creative writing at Augusta University and an instructor for the University of Georgia's Narrative Nonfiction MFA program, Graham shares her adventures on Instagram (@mslatriagraham) and her work at LatriaGraham.com.
