I think I'm alone now ...

... there doesn't seem to be any one around.
- Tiffany



I have always been the type of person who needed my alone time. While I thrive on social interaction, I will eventually short circuit if I don't have time to recooperate. This alone time, for me, is more important than sleep, and my need for it didn't subside after having a baby or after going back to work. After everyone else has gone to bed, there is nothing - and I mean NOTHING - more relaxing to me than curling up in the big chair and taking the time to do something - anything - with nothing to distract me but the sound of the refrigerator running. Sometimes I read, sometimes I write thank you notes or emails, sometimes I watch a cheesy chick flick ... but most recently I've been using that time to update my blog. It brings me back to my days hiking and camping for weeks on end with students. In the evenings after the kids hit their sleeping bags for the night, I would use the quiet time to pen a letter to a friend. I seldom do that anymore - who am I kidding - I don't do that anymore. Typing is so much easier and email so much more efficient. It was wonderful to be so removed from society for months on end that my only contact with friends and family was via general delivery at the nearest post office. Ahh, mail day. Those letters meant more than candy or trail mix in a care package. I think that's why blogging is so fun for me. It's the same concept, really. It's a letter, in a way, without the niceties and the endless lines of questions that will never get answered: How are you? Are you enjoying your summer? More important than the letter itself is the process of just writing. For the duration that I sit here typing my entries, I am alone with my thoughts. Something happens between me and the words on the screen, with the quiet hum of the refrigerator and the dark stillness of the room closing in comfortably around me. I am elevated and energized by the endless possibilities of a blank page, with no agenda and no notes to work from - no deadline. I am pushed to communicate humorously and precisely - to make people laugh and to understand with nothing but the power of words. And pictures. My other favorite pastime. Capturing the essence of a place or a person or an experience in just a single frame. Even now, with a two-month old who wakes up several times a night, I choose this quiet time over sleep. Am I nuts? (Don't answer that.)