Feast on the Silence

Friday evening.  I'm on the boat alone -- a rare treat that I am savoring like my last piece of chocolate.

One of the downsides to boat life is that alone time is a rare commodity.  For me, time alone is as essential to my health as food and water.  If I don't have time to myself -- time to think, write, reflect, create -- then I start to lose emotional weight.  I cannot function in the way that I want to be in the world because a part of me is literally starving.  I become cranky, impatient, critical and everything but loving and kind.  It's ugly.  And it feeds on itself.

If I am to be completely honest about it, it was no different when we lived in the house.  I think it's more a byproduct of being part of a family (the part called "wife and mother") than it is about living on a boat.  Back in the house, I'd occasionally lock myself in the bathroom to be alone, but even then, there'd be aknock on the door, "Hey, I, you have a phone call."  Or, "Mom, can I get in the tub with you?" But, this all seems magnified when we are never more than a few steps away from one another (a few, as in 5-10, not across the house).

When I was a girl, the oldest child of 7 siblings, I used to worry about my Mom when we'd all start scattering on the weekends.  I'd catch sight of her standing there, watching us all leave and I'd feel sorry for her.  "Will you be okay by yourself, Mom?" I'd ask.  Her answer always stung me on the one hand, but fascinated me on the other.  "I'll be fiiiiiiiine, Irene," she'd say, laughing in a mysterious way that said, "You have no idea how fiiiiiine I'll be."  Her answer was convincing and so I believed her, and off I'd go, feeling dismissed, relieved of my hyperactive guilt complex which caused me to feel that I was responsible for the entire world.  But a little pocket of my brain always wondered what in heaven's name she did when she was alone that made her love it so much.

Now I understand.  It is pure heaven to find myself alone, especially on a Friday evening when there is no pressure to cook dinner, tidy up from the day, organize around Julia's homework, with the next day's schedule and a 6 a.m. rising time hovering over all of it.

Right now, this evening, I find myself at peace.  Free to write, read, create -- even if creating means looking around the cabin and reorganizing the things on a shelf, or rearranging the pillows on the couch.   I think this is something that is lacking in general today, whether we live on a boat or in a house.  The time to be alone with nothing going on -- no TV, Facebook, email, music.  Alone time is precious and rare, but it is essential to our souls.  I am going to stop writing now and feast on the silence.