solitude

"Women need real moments of solitude and self-reflection to balance out how much of ourselves we give away."                                                             -Barbara de Angelis

       One of the most difficult aspects of touring is the lack of time I spend alone. Maybe from all those years home-schooling--waking up to an empty house, readying my cereal with only the cats for company, reading Dear Abby in peace and quiet--maybe that is why I just love waking up to silence.

        

        Unless of course, it is a silence broken by Drew.

        But on tour that is generally not the case.

        Wish to God it were. 

        Anyway, I have a lovely roommate whom I adore, but still--I do so love my privacy. Walks by myself.  Filling my time with just me and the piano, playing my feelings, transcending the monotony of life with a song.  Scrawling the outline of my life into my unsuspecting journal religiously. Reading the Bible and trying to gain wisdom, trying to read God's heart in those ancient words.  

         But all of this can be hard to do on tour. Long, solo walks aren't the most practical when you are literally staying on the side of a highway, with homeless people milling about nearby. The hotel in which I am now staying "used to have a piano," the woman at the front desk assured me.

         The past tense of that sentence was painfully clear.

         Journalling and reading can be disjointed at best when your roommate generally likes to keep the television on. 

          So, this is me trying to say that I am making solitude more of a priority. I want to turn off the noise, the distractions, of a world that is all too happy to compete for my attention. A world that is all too used to winning my attention. I want to hear my thoughts and understand how I am feeling; to sift through the parts of me that have nothing do with the fact that I stand 5 feet 8 inches tall or that my eyes are brown and have everything to do with my spirit and mind--my heart.  The things that aren't seen readily, that aren't perceived from a distance because the truth is they are the stuff that you get to when you dig down deep.

           And no, I couldn't stay there always, true. Sometimes a girl just needs to be made happy by the recent purchase of a $130 dollar jacket for the sensible price of $30. You need to come up for air with a little bargain hunting.  

            But it's a balance of remembering who you are apart from what you do. And that might just mean getting away and just being. Thinking. Praying. Writing. Walking. 

           Solituding. 

          

           Did she really just make that a verb? you're wondering, aghast. Yes, I did just make that a verb--and spellcheck is trying its darnedest to keep it from staying in it's current hybrid form. Well I am keeping it. And feeling a little like Dr. Frankenstein--only, you know, swap the dangerous monster creation for an innocuous word creation.   

           Not that exciting done my way. Which is probably why Mary Shelley did it her way. And I bet she spent a lot of time in solitude spinning out the plot in her head, deciding on the characters, writing and re-writing a fitting ending; doing what needed to be done and in the process, reminding herself of who she is and glimpsing someone who she hoped to become. 

  

           Which is why I want to follow suite.