Notes from My First Secular Sabbath

I took a secular sabbath today, turning off my computer and phone, putting away my wallet, and refraining from doing anything that involved electricity, fire, or useful work from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday (today).

Here’s how it went…

Friday

• 5:30p: Leave work and head to the Indian consulate to pick up my visa for a trip I’m taking next month.
• Long line at the consulate. I’m worried I’m not going to get out before dark so I can take the Muni home.
• Checking email on my iPhone, I see a blog comment from Noel on my secular sabbath post. I hastily go to approve it, notice a typo in the post, decide to fix it, and accidentally delete the post. Frack. I feel stupid for deleting it, but I can’t re-write it on the phone, and sabbath will have started by the time I get out of here.
• 5:50p: Thinking about writing this post while standing in line. Feel silly for ruining the experience by wanting to document it.
• 6:10p: Got my passport, leave the consulate. It’s getting dark so I reach to turn off my phone and notice I missed a call from my mom. I forgot to tell her I’m off the grid until Saturday night. Frack.
• I can’t take the Muni, so I walk the 1.8 miles home in the dark.
• Get home, realize I don’t have my keys. Must have left them at my office and no one’s home. My first instinct is to call my roommates, which I can’t do. I sit and wait for a while… maybe 30 minutes, I have no watch.
• Rested, and tired of waiting, I walk the 1.8 miles back to the office to get my keys.
• Grab my keys, talk to Paul and Phil for a bit. Watch the Heysan crew play Wii Golf. Looking for a non work-related activity, I borrow a pamphlet on SOMA from George. Think about drawing, but remember that I can’t create anything. There’s nothing I can do here that doesn’t use electricity or involve work.
• Walk 1.8 miles home. It’s cold.
• 8:30p: Read for a while. Not sure what to do with myself. Go to bed.

Saturday

• I keep waking up in the early A.M. very worried that we have a publisher deadline for the Photojojo book on Monday that I’ve totally forgotten about. It’s gonna take all-nighters to make it if I’m right, but I can’t check my calendar, and couldn’t work on it anyway. It’s hard to let it go and go back to bed.
• 8:58a: Wake up without an alarm. Still wondering about that deadline.
• Read The Fountainhead for a few hours. Eat granola bars.
• My mind wanders back to work frequently, so I borrow a trick I read online and write the idea/to-do/whatever on a scrap of paper and toss it on my desk to worry about after Sabbath. It helps.
• 1:30p: I shower and head to the park. It’s a lovely feeling to leave the house with just a few books and a key. No phone, no ID, no wallet.
• Spend a couple hours in Duboce Park, watching dogs being happy, reading The Fountainhead and The Works
• 3:30p: Come home, not sure what to do. Finish The Fountainhead. Try to think about what’s making me happy in my life right now, and what isn’t. What I should be doing more of.
• Fall asleep.
• 6:20p: Wake up. Sabbath is over. I check my email, Twitter, and Flickr. Read some responses from folks interested in how it went. Do a quick errand, head to the gym, then to the office. Call my mom on the way.

Summary: I spent a lot of time reading and wasn’t sure what else to do. Friday was hard and I felt itchy about email and wanted to work, but Saturday I mostly just felt calm. I thought a lot, but not the focused soul-searching kind of thinking I expected. I think I was afraid to.

For next time: Prepare food ahead of time. Remember my key. Spend more time unstructured, just thinking and taking notes.