Out of solitude with little time to write. However, out of solitude leads me to appreciate my times in solitude at the cottage.

     “So, you like to be alone?” I was asked by long-time friends at lunch today. My short answer was, “Yes.” My long answer would have been, “Yes, because of friends like you.”

My husband smiled and agreed.  

Another 32 degree, hat-needed grey day on the beach. An alone day but not a lonely one. I don’t know what it is about these grey days that bolsters the mettle of those who venture out. Hat, gloves, scarf bundled on and out I go. I figure it’s the same for the others: a girl and her dog, a solitary surfer, a lone gull, a single fishing boat and even an isolated waterlogged log. All alone, all in solidarity, invigorated, maybe even proud…following our bliss.

    And with that, I offer you Joseph Campbell’s encouragement from The Power of Myth.  

    If you follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in the field of your bliss, and they open the doors to you. I say follow your bliss and don’t be afraid and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.

Grey day, 38 degrees, a couple of snow flurries, no wind, but raw out. That was the weather status when I began my walk at 1PM today. If my description doesn’t paint gloom, take a look at the photo. Loneliness, depression, melancholy, despair, hopelessness (I could go on but you get the idea) could easily accompany anyone taking this walk. But, I felt just the opposite. The weather just didn’t have an effect on me. Sunny would have been fine. The weather was what it was, and so was I.

     I don’t know what gave me this calm sense of acceptance. Maybe my practice of staying in the present moment was paying off. Perhaps my decision this morning to turn off the internet, and especially my email, helped me appreciate the NOW. Instead of planning my day, I just waited to see what my body would do next. I read until I found myself walking to the kitchen to get an apple… until I put on my shoes for my walk…. This rather idyllic and simple rhythm continued all day. In fact, I don’t want to reconnected with the outside world in order to send this. What’s a solitary to do?

    During the holidays it’s a challenge to find silence, solitude and simplicity, much less write about it. The house is now back in order and I’m here at the cottage for the week. When I arrived yesterday there was a little too much silence. Not a hum from the furnace when I turned up the heat -- not a good sign. I won’t go into the details, but suffice to say that twenty four hours later the furnace company has come and gone and I can hear the hum. What about simplicity, you ask?  I’m certainly not willing to return to the simple life before furnaces; was gathering wood and keeping the home fires burning all that easy?  As for solitude, there wasn’t much of it while I was arranging for repairs.

     As with any situation that disrupts the routine, I learned from this experience. What particularly struck me was how it kept me in the present moment, in the NOW. Although I thought about my creature comforts—that I was cold…when would the oil company come—I didn’t become obsessed with them. In fact, much to my delight, I didn’t feel sorry for myself or do the poor me routine.  Rather, I sat on the deck experiencing, This is what’s happening now, as I observed the immediate activity of sea, clouds and gulls.

    Um, this is the present moment. Be with it.

     Please don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t just in the NOW. I did anticipate a future with the furnace humming but I wasn’t anxious about it.

     This is simplicity, simplicity of being.

Yesterday I attended Parmenter’s Annual Lights of Remembrance service at the Dora Efthim Healing Garden in Wayland . A joining of solitude and community at its best. The ecumenical service was sparse in a most holy way: a few poems and responsive readings, two musical interludes, the reading of the names of those being remembered, and then the lighting the garden lights. I was comforted to be with others who were listening for the names of their loved ones. We didn’t know each other but clearly we were not strangers.

First I want to report that I am happily home for the Thanksgiving week.

     Yesterday I spent a fair amount of time at the hospital, sitting at the bedside of a 92 year old friend from church. I left her at 8 PM and she died peacefully three hours later. I left her knowing that she might die, but I also believe that I left her knowing that she was not alone.

      This has me pondering solitude and the dying process. Common wisdom tell us that people do not want to die alone. Or is it that we, the living, have decided that is so? The answer is yes and no.  We can’t control when a person dies, nor if we will be with them when they take that final exhale. We don’t know what they really want, nor very likely do they. At best, we can follow our intuition and offer them the comfort that they are not alone.

    When my friend was alert she told me how comforted  she was that I had come—how our conversations helped her. I believe that that reassurance continued as I sat with her when she wasn’t alert (we are told that the hearing is ‘last to go’). She knew I was there;  she was not alone.

    I’ll never know for sure, but I have faith that I am on the right track about this. As someone who likes solitude, I’d like someone to accompany me when I’m dying. Not every minute, but I don’t want to feel alone, and a part of that has to do with physical presence.

   My ‘do nothing’ project is coming along just fine. I have no interest in adding any kind of project, as in craft, or in producing anything tangible, as in gourmet meal. However, I have taken on  a ‘think nothing’ project. In fact, I wrote about it in my lettgofstuff blog yesterday: it’s time to go, chatter in my head.

     If you’ve been following this blog for any length of time, you know that this is not a new idea for me, this being in the NOW. The silence, solitude and simplicity at the CBTS gives me long stretches of practice time. I really don’t need to get things done today, nor do I need to make any plans (much of my chatter involves planning). That all can wait.

    Being in the present moment, therefore, is my current project, a project that definitely doesn’t come easy to me. Successes are infrequent, but I have faith that will change. On my walk to the lighthouse today I practiced staying present to the ocean. Along the way I discovered a tool box—the senses. Very useful and always with me.

I’m here, sitting on the deck of my cottage by the sea. It’s my fourth year here and the setting is pretty much the same. Same coffee maker, same comfortable lounge chair, same view. But of course the view is always different—each wave, each ray of sunshine on the clouds, each gull flying across the vista. Every year I have come here with specific intentions, with a project and with the hope and wonderment of what I might discover. I’m not talking about the scenery but about what might be important to me on my life journey.

    In 2009 I came here wanting time alone. Being by the sea was essential; serendipitously  the doors of this cottage by the sea welcomed me in.  I walked the beach and did a little quilting, but I just couldn’t concentrate on any craft. In 2010 I tried my hand at  painting and collage. My worthy try lasted the season, but besides having no talent, I had no desire to put my heart and soul into it--undoubtedly the two go hand in hand. That year, however I began this blog, and discovered that my heart and soul were into experiencing silence, solitude and simplicity and sharing that longing with others, with the hope that I might inspire, affirm and encourage them on their journey.  In 2011 my blog and longing continued. My mom died a month before my season at the cottage began, and so I spent the year grieving, remembering and being ‘very grateful’ for a mom who had lived 101 years and who had been with me for a very long time.

    Today is the first day of my fourth year at the CBTS. This year I have no projects, no specific agenda. Oh, I know I’ll read, meditate, walk, sleep, eat, do a jigsaw puzzle, write this blog…. But my plan is to be. I am content to watch the water, clouds, sun, moon, waves, whatever nature presents.

      For years I have been trying to BE and stay in the NOW; but this year something is different. It’s more than a longing; perhaps it is who I am becoming. Um, it almost feels like a project, the ‘do nothing’ project. Stay tuned.

Tomorrow is THE DAY. I’m off to the CBTS.  I’m packing up:  kitchen staples, bedding, books and a jigsaw puzzle. My intention is to take just what I need, in this case for three nights, no more, no less. But what do I need? Not very much; enough food so I don’t have to get in the car and go to the local supermarket; books that I will read but not a stack of want-to-reads; shoes, hat and coat for walking the beach; computer and iPhone. This may not sound simple, but it is. Just knowing that I have the basics gives me the comfort to sit in solitude, silently watching the sun rise and set, rise and set.

Is silence and solitude relative? It feels very noisy and congested around here, but I know I have nothing to complain about. Well, I’m not complaining; I’m noticing. It goes like this. We have someone installing insulation in our basement and under our kitchen floor, which means that all kind of spaces are open, which means that our grandcat  for whom we are cat sitting, got out. That’s a problem because Izzie is an indoor cat. So for the moment we are keeping her shut in upstairs. Oh, the added responsibility of being grandparents.