Are there even words for a scene like that?
Two weeks ago I ran away to my favorite book hotel and wrote and napped and (book) shopped and then slept some more.
It was very stormy but that's a compelling reason for more napping in the library overlooking the waves.
When I wasn't haunting bookstores or running out of batteries on both laptop and camera I was taking in this view from the Emily Dickinson room, my favorite spot at my home away from home.
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It hasn't escaped my attention that my favorite room is dedicated to the great poet and, um, recluse. I do tend to border on the hermit but I don't think I focus on the morbid nearly so much as did Emily.
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Maybe valuing life for me means taking things slowly, as deliberately as possible with four (nearly five!) children. I know for sure that living my life means a lot of alone time. I find time with a close friend, a loved one, fills that same treasure box. I conversely find my treasure has nothing to do with the ringing of phones nor the steady ping of urgent email.
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So I ran away to the Sylvia Beach Hotel. It's too much. Seriously. I live in a retreat community with gorgeous views and beauty all around and all the solitude that sometimes causes my husband to worry that I'll experience loneliness in my days. I don't need to get away. And yet he affords me these three-day gems a couple of times a year: hours upon hours when words can fill my head without interruption.
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And I do this for myself with not a little guilt. It's hard to accept that I'm worth it. (I can hear my dad now, clicking away in personal-information-overload mode.). I feel compelled to tell y'all that I do this because I think confronting the mommy guilt is a worthwhile exercise. I think we must do that to be the parents we can be. We need to figure out what it is that fills our cups to overflowing, and do that. For me, running away every six months or so makes me fully present with my gorgeous family in our blessed household all the other days of the year.
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Are you a solitude seeker? A party girl? Do you thrive after a mani-pedi with a girlfriend? What do you do, just for you?
4 comments:
That looks like some beautiful veiws! I have never gone away like that but I have locked myself in my craftroom (while Ken tried to guard the door from kids that wanted to holler to me while I was in there) and scrapbooked or made cards all by myself. As my kids are getting older I am not feeling the need quite as much for the along time. They get busy with their own things and I end up getting alone time without even asking for it.
I would do exactly that! Sounds LOVELY.
I wanna know how you trained the hubby to understand your need for solitude. Mine is good guy--prince of a man--but he just. doesn't. get. it.
I've never been to this hotel, but maybe someday I can drive over and do it.
I do crave solitude for myself, though I don't mind being with others for short periods of time. Some of the things I do for myself: Drive up to Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge with my husband, drive over to the Oregon coast and drive on the beach at Gearhart, find a knitting corner and knit for awhile, work on my blog, enjoy all the birds at the feeders outside my window, and write in my journal.
Too much time with people is exhausting, though I love all my peeps to death.
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