Home alone

I'm home alone for exactly one hour. Then my partner and two children will explode through the door, and I'll grab my things and run. I have an hour to dream, think, write in silence. All those ideas I want to explore, all those things I've noted, all those scribbles to decipher. Which to do? Which way to go? They jostle and compete, and I spin on my chair. Play a scrabble move, look out the window, think about another cup of coffee. Reflect on the book I'm reading*. Beat myself up a little for not being productive. But how I need to gaze out that window, watch the sky, feel the air. How I need to feel the house settle into silence around me. In a few years, the kids will all be at school. Then the house will be quiet for hours each day. Until then, I will seize these moments of solitude, savour the silence, sit still and play with words. Ignoring the dust, ignoring the urge to do something quantifiable, to be productive, I seek restoration and re-creation alone.

*The Wine-Dark Sea by Patrick O'Brian. If you want to know what I think about his novels, click here.