Weekends

I do not remember when I have come to regard weekends as truly different from weekdays. When I was in school, which felt like an eternity, weekends were simply shorter work days plus a movie or two, or a dinner out. Perhaps it is a sign of getting old – without all that youthful energy, I do need weekends!

One would think that a change from not having weekends to having weekends could only lead to more relaxation and less stress. – Except that in my case the transition has not been that smooth, which may be akin to how people transition from working full-time to retirement. Now that I have these precious weekends at my disposal, I feel compelled to make the most of them. As a result, having my weekends has resulted in more work and perhaps more stress, because I have to do more planning in order to have “interesting” weekends. Parties need to be planned in advance, dinners need to be arranged with friends, errands need to be ran at certain hours, and housework needs to be carried out timely. I occasionally wonder if I have become slave to my own definition of a “fulfilling” life.

And God forbid if I had spent a weekend doing very little, seeing no friends, hosting no parties and attending no parties! – I would end up feeling like a failure! J During this past summer for various reasons, I went through a few rather low-key and melancholy weekends, when I stayed home most of the time, watching classics on DVD, not knowing exactly what I was hoping to get out of “Pride and Prejudice” or “War and Peace”. I even went swimming in our swimming pool a few times, hoping that I would get enjoyment out of a “relaxing” weekend. I felt quite awful after those weekends were over, as I felt that I had done nothing exciting, enlightening, educational or even entertaining!

It is amazing how sometimes we distinctively remember a particular day as a perfect day. What is a perfect day on a weekend then?

One of them happened when I was in graduate school at MIT – I remember it so distinctively probably because it was such a huge contrast to all the other long (and painful) days and nights at MIT. It was a very beautiful Saturday in the early summer. Michael and I got up early in the morning, and we drove around to visit those beautiful colleges near Boston area, including Amherst, Smith and Mount Holyoke. To this day, I have a fondness for visiting old and elegant college campuses, as they often strike me as much more interesting than some state or national parks. Perhaps it is because they combine the elements I like about a place – pristine and natural scenery, great architecture, interesting history and an aura of higher learning. Afterwards, we went to the Museum of Fine Arts to watch a movie by the very independently spirited filmmaker Sylvia Chang from Taiwan – “Tonight Nobody Goes Home”. There is something special about watching a movie in a great museum. It feels so much more rarefied than watching it in a generic movie theater that smells like buttery popcorn all the time. After the movie, we had dinner with another couple – and it was at my favorite Indian restaurant in Harvard Square, which is one of my favorite places in the world. A perfect day on a weekend combines everything that one would associate with a day off: physical exercise, sight-seeing, cultural or educational activities and of course fun parties or dinners!

So what am I going to do this weekend? Having lived in San Diego for over 6 years, I have never gone to a Miramar Air Show – presumably the world’s best military air show. That’s why Michael and I are going to see it this Saturday afternoon at a friend’s place that’s overlooking the airbase, thereby avoiding the crowds and the noises. Another friend and her husband are coming from LA to stay with us on Saturday night. Besides the two of them, I will have another two local guests over for dinner on Saturday night, which is why I am cooking a big feast. On Sunday we will probably have brunch in Del Mar by the coast – I love eating lunch at one of those restaurants overlooking the aqua-blue ocean under a bright sky. While I will spend Sunday afternoon attending the board meeting of a non-profit organization, Michael will be off to work and my LA friends will be off to see the airshow. Maybe we will finish off the weekend by watching a Merchant Ivory film “Before the Rains”. I find myself going over the plan and asking myself, “ is there anything else I can do? And have I got enough time to do all the housework and ran all the errands?” Perhaps I am one of the the unwitting products of modern-day’s overprogrammed lifestyle. There is no time for spontaneity in our age of PDAs….