Do you get enough alone time? Some people say they thrive on activity and social interaction. I’m not one of them. At this point in my life, I’m blessed to have a good bit of time when I’m the only human in the house. I take advantage of that and sit writing, with only the sounds of the keyboard to keep me company. Okay, I admit, there’s also the email alert … except on Saturdays when, it seems, most everyone in the world has better things to do. My husband works three Saturdays of the month (poor man) and though I usually have a mental list of things I should do around the house and yard, I rarely keep to it. But I had a different sort of alone time in mind when I started writing this.
I’ve been thinking back on times when I felt truly alone within myself.
Frightening times, like when, after major surgery at the age of fourteen, I realized I could die.
Spooky times, like when I’ve driven late at night in an isolated area and realized I hadn’t seen another car for ages, and started wondering: have I passed over into the Twilight Zone? has some world catastrophe left me the only person alive on earth? are those tales of alien abduction really true?
Awe inspiring times, like standing by a brook deep in a wood with the sun’s light filtering through the canopy, or standing on an ocean beach or mountain ridge, looking out to forever and feeling this could be any point in time.
For me, the best alone time has always been the tender times in the still of the night, watching someone you love peacefully sleep. Whether child, or friend, or lover, you stand guard in those few minutes. You are empowered in your aloneness. In your all one ness.
May you always have enough alone time.
One of the themes in my current work is the number three. There are three main characters. Three lives with three stories of love, loss, and redemption. The quote above illustrates my natural tendency to compose in repetition of three: street, bridge, lanes; every house, every step, every heartbeat; down, down, down. My brain does not let go at two or four; it’s satisfied at three.