Sunday Stopped Being Work in Disguise

How moving to France rewired my relationship with time, rest, and the invisible labor of weekends

Sunday Stopped Being Work in Disguise

I used to spend Sundays preparing for Monday. Of course, it was dressed up as self-care, but really I was just rehearsing the week that would flatten me. Teaching in New York meant an endless backlog of things undone and Sunday inboxes filled with inspirational quotes about new protocols and more things to do. Your weekend was a soft launch and recovery, not actual rest.

Moving to France rewired this. Not because France is perfect, but because Sunday here doesn't have deliverables. This isn’t just because we moved to France, we changed the way that we live, leading to a whole bunch of other choices I’ll get to in future posts.

The change was slow, then sudden. Until I realized I wasn't just living in a different place—I was living a different relationship with time itself.

TLDR - this is a quickie comparison of my Sundays in NYC and Sundays now in France

• NYC Sundays were fake rest: Technically days off, but full of a constant hum of should-be-doing-something anxiety.

• French Sundays don't demand productivity

• The shift was existential - and I don’t use that word a lot…

• France has its own rhythms and problems.

Sunday ≠ Monday

Sundays were full of checklists for me: if not work stuff, a chance to work on personal projects, but work, still.

Twenty years of teaching does that. You get in the habit of constantly working on things—it's one of the downsides of being an English teacher. You make a lot of work for yourself.

It was dressed up with coffee rituals and self-care language that I never learned to speak fluently, but underneath was a low-grade hum of anxiety.

My last principal had this terrible habit of contacting us every week on Sundays with a new list of passive-aggressive threats, demands for deliverables and psuedo-inspirational language that felt unnatural coming from her in the same way that some folks look very natural when they smile and others just look at you like they’re showing you their teeth.

It was a reminder that your time wasn’t your time. However she might have meant it, I came to dread those and, naturally, developed the habit of reading them on Sundays, a surefire way to trigger anxiety, just in case I didn’t have any already.

It didn’t help that she always seemed to have an inspirational quote from some American Social Justice thinker attached to something banal and administrative, and so on.

“In the words of Malcolm X, ‘I will complete my X-cel spreadsheets on time by any means necessary.’”

"As Maya Angelou once said, 'I know why the caged bird sings'—it's because it forgot to submit its daily reflection journal and needs to express its learning outcomes through interpretive movement."

"Gandhi reminded us that 'you must be the change you wish to see in the world,' and so I am implementing new hallway transition protocols! Now with color-coded floor decals and suggested mindfulness breathing at each checkpoint."

Sadly, not an exaggeration.

…but always something to do.

There's this sense in the US of being your job. Or worse, it's your calling—which in teaching allows for all sorts of petty and personal slights.

What passed for rest was often a rehearsal for Monday.

France simply doesn’t do that. Or I don’t do that in france.

I’m still not 100% sure which is which. A lot of our lives have changed in this move.

Disruption by Geography

This isn't a postcard fantasy. France is weird. And inconvenient.

I’ve gotten into the habit of stopping by places in the middle of the morning or the afternoon shift if it really has to get done, trying to find the sweet spot where I am pretty sure someone will be there, be ready, and not be preparing for lunch.

Lunch is a remarkably important meal.

Bureaucracy can feel like an escape room designed by Kafka (but today, Kafka is an American). But time moves differently.

Things close.

Sundays are separate from the normal flow of the week.

There is a time and a place - and a purpose - for different things at different times and there is a lot less deviating from that here than in the US. If there’s a 24-hour convenience store within an hour’s drive of here, I have no idea where it could be.

In New York, we had a 24-hour place on the corner and you'd have access to maybe 20-30+ different 24-hour grocery stores within a 15-kilometer radius across Manhattan, the Bronx, and Brooklyn. From where we are, there are exactly zero 24-hour options within that same distance.

You have to plan a bit more, but there’s a tradeoff: because you can’t do things at all hours of the day, you feel less like you have to be doing something at all hours of the day.

The weekend doesn't feel like a countdown anymore. It doesn't ask you to gear up, plan ahead, or be ready. It's just…quiet, mostly. Pleasant.

I am still getting used to the quietness of where we are in France.

The Market and Its Rituals

On Sundays, I often ride my bike to the market in Beaumont, one town over. It’s a quick, quiet ride and I can get what I need easily at noon, but if I’m there at 1pm, there is no chance.

The market is a 20-minute bike ride or over an hour by bus. Transit doesn't connect well from our direction—most people aren't coming this way. You adapt.

Spring makes the market a little louder. Sunny days, even more so.

You can smell the stands of strawberries before you see them—soft and overripe, the kind that collapse when touched. There’s mint stacked in buckets, the natural garden pairings sold near each other.

The cheese stall smells like six kinds of gym foot, but in the best way possible…?
[Okay – that’s a terrible metaphor, but I am leaving it in.]

The fish guy calls everyone mon gars or chef and flirts with the old women like it’s what they’re really paying for.

“Allez, mon gars, j’te fais le bar entier avec les herbes — prix d’ami. Tu vas voir. Merci, chef !”

“Come on, my guy, I’ll give you the whole sea bass with the herbs – friend price. You’ll see. Thanks, boss!”

There’s a woman with nothing but asparagus arrayed decoratively all around her who moves her own arms like asparagus stalks. A man selling eggs with feathers still stuck to them that you pick yourself for €3 a dozen. Giant purple artichokes look like delicious alien flowers.

Small spontaneous picnics arrange themselves all over as people eat and drink everywhere at the edges of the market.

There’s a really good guitar guy who’s there most weekends and a clown making balloon animals.

Something about the clown makes me think he’s got a square job during the week. Something with spreadsheets and this - the clowning - this is the weekend he lives for.

Near him, a karaoke guys sets up. Usually solo, sometimes in pairs, with portable amps and cracked laptops, singing unsteady French ballads.

Even happy songs sound sad and uncertain, but he gets tips.

random Market Karaoke may be a local phenomenon

People drift toward cafés and bars facing the market. Beers come out early—tulip glasses of amber and foam, sweating in the sun. Small plates follow. Salted peanuts, olives, quartered radishes with butter. Lots of saucisson.

Oysters are a constant here, but this area produces a lot of them.

The line between shopping and lingering blurs. You’ll see someone buying tomatoes, then twenty minutes later, sipping rosé and eating saucisson at a bar table. The market becomes a picnic. A pattern. A reason to stay.

You start recognizing people—not names, but postures. The way someone points to tomatoes, the seller that also works at the other market you go to.

The woman who always tastes things before she buys them. The man with olive oil and dried fruit who wears too much cologne, but always remembers me because I bought a kilo of cashews one day.

This isn’t a market for discovery. It’s a market for repetition. You come to re-choose the things you already know. The seasons change, the offerings change, but the Sunday remains the same.

The Ride, the River, the Return

I pack the panniers with food I now realize we’ll mostly forget to cook. We’re getting better about not buying too much—especially those picture-perfect bouquets of lettuces, the ones that look like they belong in a still life, but wilt by the next day.

Now we choose slower. Fewer things. Things we’ll actually use.

Then I take the ferry, cross, and head west through one or two small villages, from Beaumont to Les Berges, the path is familiar. Trees lean over like they’re curious, the cows stare back indifferently. The Loire shifts color every twenty minutes—grey, then silver, then gold as the clouds cycle dramatically through light settings

But mostly, it’s quiet.
Not empty—just quiet. The occasional snatch of conversation or a startled bird as I roll along

In Les Berges last weekend, there was an art event that became a community gathering, an excuse. The are was quite good, the food options not so much

There was a kind of neighbor lunch—long tables set up along the main drag, people eating quietly or not-so-quietly, borrowing forks, sharing wine. And one bar, normally closed on Sundays, open just for the event.
It wasn’t loud, exactly. Just open. Generous in that way small towns sometimes are.

On the ride back, I noticed the houses again. Shutters closed. Beige walls. Nothing to announce themselves. But one door was open. Inside: green walls, tiled floor, a velvet chair, a cat caught mid-stretch. It looked like a painting.

I’m still learning how people guard their interiors. What you see from the street is never the full story. You only get let in by accident or invitation.

Of course, it’s not perfect.

France has its own frictions—some charming, some maddening. The very slowness that makes Sundays feel sacred can make Tuesdays feel like punishment.

You miss the grocery store by ten minutes and you wait or do without. I have arrived at 9:29am to a place that opens at 9:30am and was told to wait - and then let in at 9:31am.

It’s like that with more things than it’s not.

There is a time and a place and when it’s not the right time, it’s likely not the right place.

But that’s the trade. The inconvenience isn’t separate from the appeal—it is the appeal. Or at least part of it.

There’s a little bar near us that is only open for about 16-20 hours in the entire week, but they’re pretty wonderful hours and the place is vibrant and friendly

In New York, there are some bars that might be open nearly 16 hours a day. You felt like you always needed to do something, just because you can. In France, I’ve started to not try to do certain things, simply because I don’t have to.

This isn’t everywhere in France and we don’t expect to make any comparisons to a city like New York. We’re not looking for that.

Local, Tourism

When someone hears my accent, they always ask where I am from. They’ll ask about the current government only after a few back-and-forths, but folks are curious.

Then they’ll say they love New York. And sure—they love it on vacation. The skyline, the stories, the speed and excitement. I love New York too, I just don’t need to go there anymore.

Every aspect of our lives has been changed.

I wonder what some of my French friends might do with that creeping Sunday-night panic... or the colorful spreadsheet anxiety I used to get, the dull dread of hallway duty (not because of the kids, but because there was always some new procedure being rolled out for walking), the knowledge that Monday traffic on the ironically named Cross Bronx Expressway awaits. they might not love it quite the same.

I no longer commute

the change of pace here isn’t just physical. It’s existential.

It took a while to really notice it, but I have been getting used to the pacing of things, even enjoying it at times. I couldn’t tell you the number of times I’d gone to places that were closed when we first got here, how many closed bakeries, showing up too later for lunch, and so on.

It wasn’t just new markets or bike paths or quiet Sunday mornings. It was time itself—how I moved through it, how I let it move through me.

My map shifted. And then other things did.

Small things first. Then bigger ones. It takes time. I think a lot of people are surprised or disappointed when it doesn’t magically happen.

but the changes added up for us.

Until it wasn’t just a different location.

It’s a different life.

False Weekends

The week never really ended for us.

Sundays weren't Sundays—technically a day off, but really a soft launch. Groceries, laundry, rewriting Tuesday's lessons. Trying to reset, but starting the day hunched over my laptop, tweaking slides I already couldn't stand.

Then, without fail: the email.

Sunday, 3 p.m. A quote from bell hooks or Toni Morrison meant to inspire, attached to a new protocol or spreadsheet. Bullet points. Reminders.

Praise shaped like surveillance. "Instructional spotlights" with maddeningly color-coded attachments.

It wasn't inspiration. It was compliance—documentation wrapped in intention.

A quiet reminder: your time isn't yours.

That was the rhythm.

My week always started on Sunday.

Baked deep into that rhythm, especially in New York, was the belief that if you can do something, you should.

Stillness was laziness. Doing nothing meant you were boring.

When Sunday Doesn't Demand a Deliverable

I am not sure when I realized it.

I’m not sure when I let go of the Need to DO something thing, but it didn’t happen all at once.

Monday doesn’t arrive freighted with rubrics, hallway studies, or a laminated pass policy named to be inspirations. (No one should quote Audre Lorde or Malcolm X to justify toilets passes.)

We’ve changed our whole lives here. Not just our location, our routines,

My last principal meant well, I think, trying to make meaning inside a system that rewarded language more than action. That paid in acronyms and urgency. That turned care into compliance and presence into performance.

But out here—out of the inbox, off the clock, away from the curated quotes—we just live a Sunday. Quiet. Uneventful. Full.

And no one asks us to upload documentation about it.

man in Johnny Hallyday vest

Has a change in place changed your life in other ways?

I have been constantly surprised by this and I am not sure if I knew the feeling then - or if I’m even describing it accurately now. But I feel like I am more aware of it and that is a change.

So - has a big change or a big moved changed things for you?

lemme know.

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Musical Companion

The Limiñanas – Dimanche (feat. Bertrand Belin), 2018
A slow, fuzzed-out dirge of garage rock and spoken-word malaise, Dimanche sounds like a hangover from a party you can’t remember, but it was a good one. Belin’s deadpan delivery drifts through distortion and repetition, capturing the exact emotional weight of a Sunday that won't let you off the hook, even though he seems to be talking about an odd relationship.

I love both these artists and hope to catch them on tour.

Below are appendices.

I wouldn’t even read them, but JIC you want to have a sense of my former boss’s triggering positivity.

This isn’t copied - it’s a kind of remix, but it captures it. It has been significantly shortened, if you can believe it.

K

Appendix A: Aggressive Positivity & Monday Morning Deliverables

(or: What Sundays Used to Sound Like)

Every Sunday around 3pm, my principal’s email would arrive, although it occasionally arrived as late as 9pm, but she never missed one.

With bureaucratically poetic titles like Threads of Intentionality Weekly, Cultivating Urgency or Collective Pedagogies, Vol. 6.

Always trying too hard, but smuggling directives inside bureaucratically-inspired language of mindfulness.

Each week seemed to feature a new acronym.

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Subject: Threads of Intentionality, Vol. 3 – Where We Begin, Again

Dear Collaborators:

“The function of freedom is to free someone else.” – Toni Morrison
This week, let’s hold that close—not as metaphor, but as mandate.

Instructional Practice: The Closure Renaissance
We are now fully launching our Daily Insight Closure Protocol (DICP). Each class must conclude with a documented learning closure artifact. Acceptable formats include:
• Peer-feedback index cards (hole-punched, initialed)
• Exit slips taped into “Closure Gallery” hallway folders
• Jamboard screenshots (uploaded AND printed)

Upload three (3) artifacts per class to your folder using the following format:
[LastName]_[Period]_[Date]_[ArtifactType]

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Culture & Climate: Hallway Alignment & Flow Study (HAFS)
Phase 1 begins Tuesday. Please review the Restorative Justice Movement Protocol.
• “Two Feet In” stance during transitions—no leaning.
• “Voice Off, Eyes Forward” cadence mandatory for students in Periods 1, 3, and 7.
• All Yellow Bathroom Passes (v5.3) must be returned to Main Office by 2:47 p.m.
• Late-movement Reflection Slips must go in the box outside Room 211.

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Professional Learning & Compliance Reminders
• Mindful Metrics Module 2: Attendance as Opportunity is due Wednesday by 4:00 p.m.
• All staff reflection journals are due via Google Classroom Friday at noon.
• Bulletin boards must reflect current student-centered inquiry. No outdated rubrics.
• Informal walkthroughs begin Thursday using the QR observation tool.
• Lesson plans due by 6 p.m. Monday for the week of 5/27. PDFs only.

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Shout-Outs & Collective Joy
• Mr. Vargas: Thanks for hosting the Data Dialogue Potluck—a beautiful synthesis of spreadsheets and snacks.
• Kudos to the 7th Grade team for handling Friday’s unannounced fire drill with restorative grace.
• Ms. G: your hallway poetry wall continues to disrupt the status quo in beautiful ways.

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Let’s remember: this isn’t about compliance. It’s about culture.
Yes, it’s hallway protocol.
But it’s also how we show up—for students, and for each other.

Together, we begin. Again.

“I am deliberate and afraid of nothing.” — Audre Lorde

In partnership,
Ms. Taylor
Principal, Interim Acting
New Horizons Middle School of Applied Experience
NYC DOE

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Appendix 2

Why French Roads Are Red and Black and Buffalo have something to do with it.

Holiday Traffic, à la Française

The French have their own problematic rhythms, and everyone knows it.

This week, both Wednesday and Thursday are journées rouges (red days), per Bison Futé—France’s quirky yet reliable national traffic forecast. Why? L’Ascension (Ascension Day) on Thursday, with many faisant le pont (“making the bridge”) by taking Friday off for a long weekend.

It’s the 3rd one this month, marking the semi-official start to the season.

Expect clogged roads, outbound from major cities today and inbound on Sunday, which is tagged as a journée noire (black day)—the highest alert—for return traffic in northern France, complete with bouchons (jams), ralentissements (slowdowns), and all that.

to me, it sounds like it would be a journée rouge any day of the week in NYC, coming or going.

France’s biggest toll road operator, Vinci Autoroutes, maintains private autoroutes, which get expensive, but suffer much less traffic, but don’t get you everywhere.

But they have nice bathrooms.

Oh - and why Bison futé (clever bison)? Some 1970s marketing guys seemed to think that bison moved in large groups in a very orderly fashion. It caught on.

French bison in their natural habitat.

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