The lonely, the sad, the dispersed, the displaced: some of the people who don’t like long weekends. Long weekends are like New Year’s Eve. They can make you weep. I came across this poem by Vikram Seth. 

in the Case of the Missing Towels here, said that on long lonely weekends, she pretends she’s in a spa or a writer’s retreat or someplace where she’s voluntarily chosen to go. Then she’ll do for herself what she’d expect to do there. Take a bubble bath. Sit in a comfortable chair and read a book you’ve been putting off reading. (I’m reading Toni Morrison’s Beloved.) Make a nice meal for herself. Get out watercolors. Organize old photographs. Go for a walk. Watch a favorite old movie. Get out a pen and blank notebook — you have to have those writing instruments still — and write, write, write. Write it to right it. Write how it feels to be 24, 36, 49, 73 — how it feels to be you — on a long weekend in May 2012 wherever you find yourself on earth. Sometimes we can’t always live the best page of the best chapter of our lives but we can write it all down for art’s sake, for life’s sake. And the reverse is true: we might not write the best story but we can live the best story.

“I try not to allow myself to go to that negative neighborhood,” Lily said. “You know, that dark place where I feel so bad about myself and about everything in my life. Instead I try to focus on what I can do to take care of myself.”

What do you do when the weekend time seems to stre-e-e-t-c-h into forever?

Our Roving Reporter Posted This Photo From New Zealand. “All You Who Sheep Tonight.” Oops.

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