We’re home for a few weeks, and I intend to settle comfortably into a rut lined with words. Reading and writing, the necessary things that call for attention as winter gives one final roar before melting into spring. I pull out my manuscript and reorient myself in the work. I pull out the copyedited manuscript of
But your solitude will be a support and a home for you, even in the midst of very unfamiliar circumstances, and from it you will find all your paths. Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet We decide to take advantage of another warm and sunny afternoon to clean out the front flowerbed. I take
Solitude is the furnace of transformation. Without solitude we remain victims of our society and continue to be entangled in the illusions of the false self. Henri Nouwen, The Way of the Heart Suddenly the world seems to assault with its noise and I realize it is deafening me. So I turn it off. And I
This is no time for hurry or for bustle. Thoughts are slow and deep and golden in the morning. John Steinbeck , Tortilla Flat It is early—some might say, too early. A saner person might roll over and go back to sleep, but I reach for my Kindle and finish the book I’ve been reading. Maya
It has always taken me a long time to think of something to say, and then more often than not I say it to myself. Wendell Berry, Jayber Crow Sometimes it feels too loud and busy, even when it doesn’t appear that way. That’s a sign that it’s time for intentional solitude and silence, those
There is no doubt that solitude is a challenge and to maintain balance within it a precarious business. But I must not forget that, for me, being with people or even with one beloved person for any length of time without solitude is even worse. I lose my center. I feel dispersed, scattered, in pieces.
For now she need not think of anybody. She could be herself, by herself. And that was what now she often felt the need of—to think; well not even to think. To be silent; to be alone. All the being and the doing, expansive, glittering, vocal, evaporated; and one shrunk, with a sense of solemnity,