Every Day Is Saturday (Except Sunday)

By 9:17 a. m. this morning I am on the ground in the Intermarché parking lot with one arm fully committed under a row of carts, trying to retrieve a one-euro coin that is visible, technically within reach, and absolutely not coming back without a level of effort that feels disproportionate to the situation.

There’s gravel in places I didn’t know existed. At this point, I have committed too far to exit this situation with dignity.

A man with a baguette is watching.

We’ve made eye contact.

No one is stepping in.

You think it’s going to be lavender.

That’s the version people carry around. The one where you wake up in rural France and the light is already doing you a favor, the window opens onto something picturesque, and the day unfolds exactly as it should. You move through it like someone who has made a series of very good decisions, possibly barefoot, definitely unhurried, certainly not lying face-down in a parking lot negotiating with loose change.

Back to me.

Still under the carts.

The coin has not moved.

Eventually, I get it.

Not gracefully, not in a way that suggests this was handled well, but the coin is retrieved, dignity is negotiable, and we all move on.

I stand up, brush off what I can, which is not everything, and head inside like this is exactly how I meant to start the day.

Inside, the store has its own system, and I am not part of it.

It’s not slow. It’s…committed. Focused. Like everyone has quietly agreed that this is where decisions are made and no one is leaving until they get it right.

A woman is pressing tomatoes like she’s narrowing down a suspect list. Not aggressively, just with the calm certainty that one of these is the correct tomato and she is going to find it if it takes all morning.

Next to her, a man is turning a melon in his hands like it’s a small, uncooperative planet. He rotates it, pauses, rotates it again, holding it at eye level like it might reveal something if he waits long enough.

No one rushes.

Not physically. Not mentally. Not even conceptually.

The entire place feels like a low-stakes, high-commitment decision-making environment where everyone understands the rules except me, and I am doing my best not to draw attention to that fact.

So I adapt.

I pick up a tomato.

I press it.

I wait.

I press another one.

I stay longer than I need to.

I leave with three cheeses that feel like they come with expectations, a melon I did not choose so much as inherit, and a jar of something that seemed like a good idea at the time and will almost certainly require interpretation later.

No one here seems to be trying to finish anything.

Back home, the house has already started without me.

Laundry, for instance, is no longer a task. It’s a situation.

In theory, you wash things, you hang them, they dry, and you move on with your life.

Here, it feels more like I’ve joined a conversation that’s been happening for hours and no one is stopping to explain the context.

The machine hums in that steady, slightly superior way, like it knows something about moisture and timing that I will never fully understand. Outside, the line is strung between two trees, and the sheets and shirts aren’t drying so much as existing in a long-term negotiation with the air.

They move slightly.

They pause.

They continue.

I stand there holding a sleeve up to the light like I’ve been given a role I’m not entirely qualified for, trying to decide if it’s done or just… continuing.

At some point, I decide it’s done.

It does not argue. I’m starting to suspect I’m not in charge of this.

It should feel like a chore. It doesn’t.

The garage door doesn’t open.

Not dramatically.

Just… declines.

Like it has already processed the request and moved on to something else.

There’s a note from La Poste on the counter informing me that a package exists somewhere in France, which feels less like useful information and more like a general concept I’m meant to accept.

The jacuzzi acknowledges my presence, blinks once, and then returns to stillness like it briefly considered participating and then decided against it.

And somehow, none of this feels like a problem.

I take the dog out for a hike.

It’s chasse season, which means this is, objectively, not my best decision.

Fleur is up ahead looking like a small, perfectly rendered woodland creature with full Bambi energy, delicate, alert, absolutely thriving in an environment that feels designed specifically for her.

I, on the other hand, am dressed like a highlighter.

Chartreuse. Hot orange. Not subtle. Not negotiable. If visibility is the goal, I have achieved it on every level.

We step into the forest like this is fine.

Fleur moves forward with complete confidence, like she belongs here, like she has paperwork, like someone waved her through earlier.

I follow behind her, deeply visible, slightly concerned, and suddenly very aware that I may be the most obvious thing in a several-kilometer radius.

There’s a sound somewhere off to the side that could be a branch.

Or could be someone seeing me from a distance and adjusting accordingly.

Fleur doesn’t even look back.

We keep going.

At this point, turning around feels like admitting I didn’t think this through, and I’m not ready for that level of self-reflection.

Lunch doesn’t interrupt the day.

Lunch takes it over.

It starts slowly and then, without warning, becomes the structure everything else rearranges itself around. Plates arrive, bread appears and reappears like it has a long-term plan, conversation expands in loops that don’t need to land anywhere.

At some point, I realize I’m eating something I would once have questioned.

Now I’m nodding.

Agreeing.

Reaching for more.

Fully committed.

Not to the dish.

To the situation.

There is no exit strategy at this point.
This is happening to me now.

Time doesn’t stop.

It just… stops being relevant.

There’s no sense of time passing. Just… happening.

I’m halfway through pretending I might try the garage again when I hear gravel.

Jean-Michel.

Of course.

He pulls up like this was always going to happen and I’m just late to understanding it. No text. No warning. Just gravel, car door, Jean-Michel, bottle of wine. The full sequence.

He holds the bottle up slightly, like it explains everything.

Which, to be fair, it does.

I am still standing there with whatever plan I thought I had for the day, and within about thirty seconds that plan has been downgraded to a suggestion.

Glasses appear. I don’t remember getting them. We’re suddenly standing just outside the door, and the conversation has already started without a clear beginning…something about the weather, then wood, then a fence, then something with a long and complicated backstory I’ve arrived in the middle of.

I nod.

I participate.

I lose track of what we’re talking about almost immediately, but it doesn’t seem to matter. The point is not the topic. The point is that we are now here, doing this.

At some point I realize I’ve stopped thinking about everything I was supposed to do.

At some point after that, I realize I don’t care.

And then, like it’s just occurred to him, Jean-Michel says he came to invite me to lunch on Sunday.

Which is apparently why he’s here.

It just took a full glass of wine to get to it.

This is not what I planned, and somehow that’s the best part.

Somewhere between a second glass and a story I’m only half following, I remember the list.

Laundry. Groceries. The things.

But it feels distant now, like something I wrote down for a different version of the day, one that no longer seems particularly convincing.

The laundry is dry.

Of course it is.

The house is still.

And everything that needed to happen… has happened.

Not in the order I planned.

Not in the way I expected.

But completely.

Every day is Saturday here.

Not because there’s nothing to do, but because the doing doesn’t stay where you put it. It stretches into conversations, into meals, into things that interrupt you just long enough to remind you where you are.

The laundry still needs to be done.
The groceries still need to be bought.
Things still don’t work when they should.

None of that changes.

What changes is something quieter.

Somewhere along the way, the ordinary stops feeling like something to get through…

…and starts feeling like the thing itself. No one announces it.

And then, without planning to, you look up.

Something unfinished in your hands, something unexpected just ahead and you realize you’re not waiting for the day to begin.

You’re already in it.

If this sounds like your kind of Saturday, there’s more of it waiting just below.