Sunday Rest

So if Sunday is my resting day then what am I to do with myself? I used to ask myself this question every week. I always felt like I needed to be doing something, going somewhere, or a least working.

Now I'm a little older Leo Tolstoy's idea in his 1959 novella Family Happiness is a bit more how I like it to be.

“A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one's neighbor — such is my idea of happiness.”

Today I've managed five of his suggested activities, I've cooked a little, rested a while, gone for a short walk, red about the classics and listened to some of the music in the picture above, Bach's Prelude 1. The latter got me to thinking chances are Johann Sebastian wasn't thinking that this would become one of the defining musical texts in keyboard history, but, somehow, it has.

Perhaps it's the delicate nature of the piece, its fragility or its simplicity at the beginning moving us gently through different chords and registers. Whatever it is, it does wonders for helping you lose yourself in the moment and relax a while longer.