Tried to write about solitude in my last post and failed.  It's been bugging me ever since so will try again.

Yes, I don't like crowds.  Frankly, I'm a bit antisocial.  I'll pretend not to see someone, even someone I like not because I don't want to talk to them but because I don't want to talk at all.  Because I walk Mikaela every day and a neighbour who became a friend found out about it, she began walking with me.  Then another friend, 5 minutes drive away, joins us two or three times a week.  Then another friend occasionally comes as well plus we meet another friend/neighbour if we happen to be out walking at the same time.  There is also a man, stranded with a damaged heel and a purchased but unavailable sailboat in Tahiti who sometimes walks part of the way.  

I like all these people, these lovely bright funny, sometimes hilarious women, and the man is so frustrated at his forced landlocked lockdown, he braves a gaggle of women just to have sympathetic ears to vent to.  They're great - but the days when no ones comes, when the people I meet on the street are just hellos in passing are gold.  There is silence.  There is stillness even as our 6 feet pad a rhythmic tattoo on the bitumen.  I can stop and admire the many stunning views and not feel rushed to move off.  I can walk at a leisurely (or speedy) pace.  I'm not walking to get fit, I'm just walking my planet, reacquainting myself with the sights and sounds and smells.   And the back and forth two tone beat of my steps seems to free my mind from the details of a day.  Or maybe it's just because I've the Universe above my head and dotted i's and crossed t's are just insulting beneath such immensity.

There's also the question of how much time alone is enough.  Long before I moved the tv into the closet I was getting jack of it.  Even the best dramas, well acted, produced, filmed etc were just another sight on a well worn path.  I'd seen it all before.  The endlessly talking heads, god how sick I became of it.  There is a deluge of information to be got through each and every day.  Talk talk talk.  

How much time did I have alone before?  Sitting on the loo, yes.  Maybe driving somewhere to do an errand.  Walking down the driveway in the morning for Mikaela's piddle walk.  A minute here a minute there.  Not enough.  How could I ever hope to delve into the meatiness of existence when constantly distracted.  I couldn't follow one thought through to another to another to another.  Always yanked off course by yet another bit of information.

How long does it take to see a tree?  A glance, yup, that's a tree.  But to really see it?  A lifetime might not be enough.  How long to hear and feel the beauty of birdsong.  Oh, what a pretty tune!  Yup.  But the miracle of that song?  I'll probably never truly see a tree or truly hear the beauty of a bird singing but unless I am left alone to try, I'll never have the chance. 

So now, living alone I am exultant.  I'm slowing down.  I'm pottering about the house and in the garden.  I stand on the driveway entranced and unembarrassed by my entrancement.  The world expands in direct proportion to the silence. 

 And again, and always, I am so so grateful.