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| Text credit: Life of Pi by Yann Martel |
Alone in the middle of the ocean is an alone that is not very hopeful or life giving...I'm contemplating that this is where I went with the word alone. Alone can also mean having space, but I went with something that speaks to distance and almost despair, not a sense of desired aloneness to clear one's mind.
I am spending a lot of time "alone" these days. Switching from a full-time job surrounded by people, bombarded by noise and conversation and with constant thought, I am now at home with an infant. I spend my days nursing a baby and deciding whether the brief time between each feeding should be used for a household chore, the reading of a book, or a nap. It is an interesting type of alone. Even when I was alone at work it was easy to find someone with whom I could have conversation or I was busy working on the endless list of to-dos. My to-do list is still endless, it just doesn't carry the same type of pressure. I find myself turning on Netflix and filling the alone space with the voices of others. However it is still mind-numbing. There is no intellectual thought or conversation in it. There is no creative energy used to watch a TV show. There isn't really any interaction, so I am still alone.
My goal for the next several weeks will be to try and take that alone time to create space to clear my mind, to read and contemplate, to draw closer to God, because that is what Lent is about, right? Here's to finding alone to be life-giving in its space instead of constantly trying to fill it.
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