Several times yesterday, Saturday, I kept thinking that Monday was the next day. I started thinking about what I had to do and was feeling a little bummed that the week was starting up so soon. Then, in a blast of lucidity, I realized it was actually going to be Sunday, my favorite day in the week. It’s a day when I feel it’s OK to take a break from everything on my mind. I figured if God took the day off from all the work he had to do in creating the Universe, I could shit can all of my routines for just one day.

Sunday is also very special, because that is when I get into my motorcycle gear and can actually look like a mean biker. It’s primarily the worn leather vest and the hat du jour, which I can never seem to keep for more than a few months, before the wind captures it, catapulting it behind me, lost forever and never worth risking my life over. I meet up with the Sons of Kauai at the 7/11 in Lihue and do the bro thing, smiling and hugging my friends, often the only haole in the group, lovingly accepted, even though I ride a Honda! I often come home in the afternoon and write one of my wildly popular stories, usually a topic I’ve been thinking about for a number of days.

My last moment of day confusion came over me when I got into bed last night. I started thinking about all the shit I had to do tomorrow and it happened one last time. Holy shit, tomorrow is Sunday, like a gift from God. I know I went to sleep with a smile on my face, happy to have straightened out the confusion one last time.

I woke up this morning, thrilled to have this extra Sunday. The night was a restless one, filled with all sorts of weird dreams that are crystal clear in my sleep and gone like the night in the morning. I know they are vivid and often quite spooky. I usually wake up several times during the night, because it is my bladder’s way of telling me not who I am anymore. When I return to bed, I don’t think I am sleeping, but sometimes the same fucked up dream will seamlessly continue or I will go to a new and strange place. I think I have been awake all that time, but several hours quickly pass. The whole dream thing is brand new and started when I abruptly and heroically gave up Mary Jane in all its varied personas around two months ago.

I got out of bed, incredibly happy it was Sunday and the early morning sky told me that I was going to have a great ride on Flaming Lips, my Honda. This is not your average bike, because it has two speakers, snug against the speedometer and I am serenaded on my rides by the music I love, even Ravi Shanker, which can be a bitch to listen to for thirty minutes at a time.

On this special morning, I chose to do what I do most every other day, but set aside on this day of rest. The first thing is my twenty-five minute Zen sit. I’ve a cushion and a small alter right beside my bed. I sat the full time and never thought about the clock, which I am often tempted to look at, because time is way to slow. I have no brilliant theories relating to my meditation practice. Normally, my mind can run amok with all sorts of shit and I just let it happen, sometimes sneaking a peek at how much time I have left for this torture. This morning was wonderful. When you inhale deeply and hold it for a second, before freeing it from your body, it crowds out any thoughts. It is a kind of punctuation that stops your mind from wherever it happens to be.

At the end of my sit, I always say three prayers, two are in Japanese and I don’t know what the fuck they mean and I have never cared about it. Lastly, I recite in English, something called the Four Vows, which I will spare you. The only time I can recite any of these is when I am on the cushion, otherwise I swear I cannot repeat them. I have been extremely troubled by one of the vows and tried through most of Saturday to remember it and I was missing some of the words. I am incredibly sad over the way many of us have been behaving recently and it is not Left versus Right or unique to America. The vow I remembered on the cushion this morning is, “Greed, Hatred and Ignorance Rise Endlessly, I Vow to Abandon Them”. It is the second one and when it returned to me, I began to cry on the cushion. It has been an affliction of our species for millennia. Not wanting to put words into the mouth of the Buddha, I think he was saying it is our nature to behave like this and it requires effort to transcend. We seem to be incapable of understanding that our eventual demise will come from our inability to rise above our shortcomings for the greater good of all and I cried.

Crap, we’re already running long and I have to briefly mention the two other legs I stand on. Six days a week, for twenty-five years I have done the exact same yoga practice. Going from the cushion to yoga is perfect for me. On the cushion, I embrace my spirit, my life force, and posing on the yoga mat, I make love to my body. It is a kind of ballet, merging the body with that spirit. I had a great practice on this extra Sunday, because I deserved it.

I used to be a compulsive runner for over forty years and recently decided it was time to give my aging machine a break. For the past few months, I have been working out on a stationary bike, the third leg that steadies all of me. Once again, in celebration of this eighth day of the week, I got on the bike and pumped like a wild man, speakers snug against my ears. Unable to hear myself, every so often, I sing along and it is not pretty and I don’t care. It is the perfect way to punctuate the end of my morning routine, keeping the body strong for the day ahead.

I had a wonderful start to my day and gifted myself with the three precious gifts that have nurtured me for years. I have written so many times about the magic of the motorcycle that I will not do it to you this time, but let me just say it was perfect in a way that only a biker can understand.

Thank you so much for spending this Extra Sunday with me. I am grateful beyond words.