Zak Kinnaird

SUNDAY IS MY day of penance. Not for Puritan sins, but for my more modern Boston vices. For a work week where I didn’t once rise or grind. For a Duolingo streak in shambles—lo siento. For texts from dear friends I’ve left unread. For spending every summer Sunday chasing a stiff drink and a strong breeze to sail on. Forgive me, Michelle Wu, I have been wicked in Boston.

Yet Sundays are for renewal. This first December one, like every year, I join friends from the Beacon Hill Civic Association to festoon the streetlamps with pine and mirth. With stepladders on loan from the legendary Charles Street Supply, we clatter up and down the brick sidewalks, hauling wreaths and humming along to holiday hits blaring from our portable speakers. We muse about the methane burning nonstop in the lamps we decorate—yet still we are charmed.

Next, I retreat to the Boston Athenaeum, that quiet chapel for the overcommitted. Here, I send sober texts of my regrets while sketching next week’s social calendar amid books once owned––some lightly read––by George Washington. This week I’ll donate blood at MGH—good for the conscience, the calories, and maybe a life or two. Plus, they have T-shirts!

Alas, atonement is also for anybody seeking to be toned—so on Sundays, I run, and it’s often with the infamous Midnight Runners through the Common, Esplanade, and Waterfront. Despite our name, we set off well before midnight—hundreds strong, a few runners burdened heroically with neon-lit loudspeakers blasting music through the streets. Our own gaudy spectacle delights us and bemuses bystanders. But don’t they know Boston is a runner’s city?

By dusk, I’ve nearly completed my Sunday amends—wreaths hung, texts sent, and miles logged. The lamps of Beacon Hill burn bright another night, their gas halos flickering like our own mild, intermittent trespasses. Still, Boston forgives its sinners easily, as long as they show up with a ladder, a private access library card, and good running shoes. If salvation exists anywhere, it’s in our acts of community faith—proof that even the wicked of Boston can be, if only briefly, redeemed. The city takes a little of your blood, your time, your effort—and in return, it lets you feel whole again, if only until next Sunday.

Zachary Kinnaird works as a patent attorney supporting ultrasound development and public-private partnerships at Philips.