Recently, while perusing the stacks at my local library, I came across, “The Solitude of Thomas Cave,” by Georgina Harding. (Of course it was the title, that caught my attention.) The novel, set in 1616 during the early whaling expeditions around Greenland, is a rather haunting story of Thomas Cave, who on a shipmate’s wager that no man can survive the winter there alone, remains behind and waits for the whaling ship to return—which it does. The story has many flashbacks and is held together by a narrator, as well as by Cave’s journal entries and the narration of Thomas Goodlad, a young sailor, who befriends Cave on those voyages and who keeps in touch with him afterwards as Cave wanders around, finally settling alone on the English coast.

       It struck me that after spending that winter just trying to survive, Cave never talks about his experiences nor his accompanying thoughts or feelings. Although it is evident that his relationship with God has deepened, it, too, is beyond verbal expression. And yet God appears in some quiet, subtle way as miracles are performed. By Cave? By God? Part of the mystery.

        All of us longing for solitude find ways to share parts of our search. We talk, take pictures, do art, write, and even blog, and like Thomas Cave we show by example. So many ways. But even with all these words and ways, we know that it is not all to be exposed. We solitudes live in our own secret garden, which  we cherish as part of the mystery.

       Oh dear, this sun room is getting cluttered. What is going on here? I haven’t put any “sitters” or “hangers” back after clearing out for the new windows, but, oh, stuff is piling up-- newspapers, books, a coffee cup, some laundry, you know, the typical accumulation of daily living.  Not to worry, it will just take a minute to tidy up.

        I’m reminded of the following story retold by Joan Chittister.
      The Hasidim tell the story of the visitor who went to see a very famous rabbi and was shocked at the sparsity, the bareness, the emptiness of his little one-room house. “Why don’t you have any furniture?” the visitor asked.  “Why don’t you?” the rabbi said. “Well, because I’m only passing through,” the visitor said. “Well, so am I,” the rabbi answered.

          I want the room to look like we’re just passing through.

       Yesterday we had the glass panels replaced in our sun room. The view now is clear and we are told that the new glass will keep both the summer heat and winter cold out. But I want to tell you about the process of preparing for the workmen, which meant clearing out everything, and about our plans for putting nothing back. Well, almost nothing.
       The room is an extension of our kitchen so the task was to move everything out of the sunroom area. Of course this included all the furniture—an upholstered couch and chair, a wooden table and four chairs, a rocking chair, an end table, one trunk serving as a coffee-table, three lamps and an enormous forty year-old jade tree. That’s about it for the big stuff.
        But then there was the little stuff: our collections and collectables, which we call sitters and hangers--figurines, books, candles, plates, plastic frames with family art work, little signs that such as Blessings on this House,  wind chimes, old wooden sports equipment including ice skates and a golf club, and mugs, mugs, mugs. There was also a printer’s shelf, on which were balanced about one hundred tiny “sitters” in the fifty tiny niches. The entire place looked like a museum or an antique shop.
       My description doesn’t do justice to the “before” scene, and alas I didn’t take a picture. But it’s the “after” prospect that has me energized. We’ve decided be minimalists, which to us means having very little stuff.  Most of the furniture is back, but the jade tree, which burst its pot on the way out, is now only a little possibility of an outdoor plant. The sitters and hangers are not going back. We’ll keep one or two, offer some to our kids and grandkids, sell a few, and box the rest for the church rummage sale or the “put & take” at the dump.
      What a relief. Ever since I started going to the cottage by the sea, I’ve been searching for simplicity, and now I actually feel that I’ve found some. Plus, I’ve gained some new skills and attitudes to help me discover even more. And yet being a minimalist isn’t going to be easy. I already miss the museum and it will take some getting use to not to live in an antique shop.

       I am appreciating the silence today. After an early morning thunderstorm, the neighborhood as been quiet. No barking dogs or fire sirens, and very few cars going by; one of those still summer days.

     In the stillness I am thinking of all the noise that was out there in the world yesterday. Worst of all, the explosions and aftermath in Oslo, and the eighty or more gun shots at the island retreat nearby. Also alarming, the negative rhetoric between our government officials.

     As I sit in my quiet house I’m feeling helpless, discouraged and a little fearful. From time to time, however, I get some solace from the thought that those of us who long for silence, solitude and simplicity have the mysterious job of holding the silence (and the peace) for those making the noise or having to participate in it.

     I know that one of these days I’ll be on the side of noise, and I’ll be glad that someone is out there holding a silent vigil for me.

      The other day on Greater Boston Emily Rooney interviewed Nina Sankovitch. author of “Tolstoy and the Purple Chair” and the accompanying blog,  readallday.com. For an entire year, Sankovitch read a book a day, and blogged about each one as a way to deal with her grief from her sister’s untimely death from cancer.

        Sankovitch isn’t the only one living out this very compelling idea of doing a similar thing every day for a year. There was Julia cooking a Julia Child’s recipe a day. There is Noah Scalin’s “365: A Daily Creative Journal: Make Something Every Day and Change your Life!”  Gretchen Rubin, creator of The Happiness Project tells her readers: “I observed that it’s often easier for me to do something every day than to do it some days.” Check out these sites for inspiration.

       I’m not talking here about our personal daily habits that don’t make one bit of difference in other people’s lives-- drinking coffee, checking email, reading the paper, even taking a walk. After all, if we run out of coffee one day, or if the paper doesn’t get delivered, no one but us will know or care.

     What makes Sankovitch’s commitment to read a book a day so compelling is that she announced her intention out loud and promised to share her experience with others. People who got wind of her blog, started counting on her each day, and I bet she didn’t want to let them down.
     I never promised to post every day, but I do sense a obligation to keep cottage by the sea going on a regular basis. After all, it doesn’t feel right to tell people about my blog and then post sporadically. Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve missed a daily quote; you can pretty much count on that. I do my best to post a blog every other day, but a post a day is pretty appealing—just not always practical.
     For me, silence, solitude and simplicity is not about being a hermit, but  about sharing from that deep spot in me. 

  This story as always touched me. Silence, solitude and simplicity is never in the cottage on other hillside. We create it in our own heart.  

Dr Alex Tang

          There is a story told about a young boy who lived with his parents in a cottage on a hillside overlooking a valley. Every evening, he would sit on his front porch and looked over to another house that is situated on another hillside at the other end of the valley. His favorite moment was when the sun was sinking in the west; the other house would burst into a dazzling golden light. How happy these people must be who live in a house with golden windows, he thought. He would fantasize about living in such a house. How happy he would be. He looked around his own house and wished that his house had golden windows too.

           One day, this boy packed his favorite toy and a loaf of bread and set off to the house of his dreams. The journey took longer than he thought. It was sunset when he climbed the other hill slope. He was disappointed when he reached the other house. It was a cottage like his own home, smaller and more rundown. The windows were ordinary and were not golden at all!  He was so disappointed. The kindly folks in the cottage offered him a bed for the night as it was too late for the journey back. He shared supper with the simple folks and went to bed early. The young boy was eager to start his journey early the next day and leave this disappointing house behind.

        Early the next morning, he let himself out just when the sun was rising to get an early start. He looked across the valley toward his own house. As the ray of the rising sun struck his home, it burst forth in a dazzling golden light!

     The sign, announcing that on July 18 and 19 they will be paving our road, has been out there for a week, so early this morning I parked my car in the bank parking lot across the street in case I need a quick get-away. Actually, the road looks fine to me; in my estimation it is the only one in town without potholes.
        However, in order to live into silence, solitude and simplicity, I’d better stop analyzing whether the road needs paving at all. I’m basically not a critical person, but how easy it is to get into the negative, thinking everyone else wrong so that I can be right. You know how it is-- an easy, incestuous  habit.
     I may be right about the road, although just as easily I could be wrong. All I have is an opinion based on my sporadic pothole count. If I’m not willing to write the letter, get on the committee, or speak to the folks in town who donate their time to make democracy work, I had better shut up and be silent. Maybe my best contribution to bring peace to this town, country, and world, is to practice the silence, solitude and simplicity that I long for.

          Sometimes I need to be reminded to “smell the roses”  and keep the beauty and mystery of nature in the foreground in my own back yard. How easy it is to note what needs to be done rather than appreciate what is there.
        Case it point--these black-eyed Susans. My husband, the resident gardener around here, isn’t certain where they came from, but his best guess is that they are “volunteers” delivered by the wind.

          Black-eyed Susans are biennial, which means they live for two years. In the first year, the plant grows a rosette, which is a group of leaves growing from the center, low to the ground. In the second year, the plant sends up flower stalks. At the end of the second year, the plant dies.            http://www.fcps.edu/islandcreekes/ecology/black-eyed_susan.htm    

        He has decided not to mow that area of the lawn so that these visitors can multiply freely where they will, for alas this is their last year. Ah, I trust that the wind sends new seeds.

       If I were more technologically sophisticated I could send you a recording of all the noise that’s been going on within throwing distance of my house during the last twenty four hours. But lucky for you, one picture will have to do. A picture that doesn’t do justice to the recent interruptions. (Ah, but for the moment it is silent here except for the wind rustling the leaves.)
      In case you can’t figure it out, the photo is of the street drain that the highway commission has “raised” in preparation for repaving the road. The drilling was horrendous; I could hear the rat-a-tat-tat move up the street, drain by drain.
     I didn’t take a picture of the commercial leaf blowers two houses over, but you know what that sounds like. Along with the noise coming through the window, came the smell of gasoline. UGH!
      Finally there are the neighbor’s dogs who bark throughout the day. I have a great deal of sympathy for the neighbors because I used to have yipping dogs, too, and truth be told, I couldn’t control their barking. (One dog used to bark when the phone rang until she became deaf and then everyone who called me asked if she had died.) Thankfully these dogs are far enough away so that I’m not startled when they begin a barking session.
     When it happens, we know the difference between noise and silence. Silence can be background noise, such as the rustle of leaves or even the hum of a car doing by. It becomes noise when we are startled and bothered, when we are annoyed and distracted from what were doing.