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YOU CAN TASTE IT
Wednesday Dec. 23, 2015
Need some?
Some alone quiet time?
Everybody craves it. Palpable. Some fight for it, plan a break, make a run-for-it. Not found outside prison walls or outside some relationship (ie: quit your marriage, quit your job, move towns, move countries).
Growing up as an only child, learning early on that solitude is not something you fight to achieve, it’s something to endure. When reaching out, going out, joining-in, meeting-up, engaging others – solitude tags along. Sometimes gloomy. More often, it is freedom, flexibility most people don’t understand. They don’t know enough – if ever – how it feels to stand in that space, of aloneness.
Alone-mode reality owns many faces. Alone is not about sharing, but more about not having to share. Time, things, thoughts. Alone is quiet. Alone is hopeful. Alone, a monologue of imagination, memory and hopefulness. Alone means nobody stands in our way, no commitments exist, no person or group represents an obstacle or complication except one, this lone one, making choices …
Alone is portable – you can be alone in hustling bustling crowds, you can be alone in traffic gnarled, in midst of conversation, negotiation or spaghetti-wrestling …
Alone is wonderful, but not for everyone. Alone isn’t fixed by trips away, trips to malls, with cash or credit cards. Can’t order-in or take-out. It’s much like love – you can’t buy it, but you can acquire it. You get it. You give it. Can’t hold it in your hand but for most of us, whether you need a little or a lot, it is most precious cargo.
It can heal, seal, be a meal – because it is real.
You can taste it.
Mark Kolke
written / published from Calgary, AB
morning walk: -15C/5F, mostly clear here, steady north breeze provided a brisk face-wakeup, Gusta miffed by shortness of our walk (but I promised more/longer/later) as a busy morn awaits …
Reader feedback:
BEYOND BUCKET LISTS
Thanks Mark. Really connected to today’s blog. N and I are reflective on the season and the mix of emotions and (unmet?) expectations that bubble up (once again) not only for the hoped for - or missing - family gatherings . . . but also for the year ahead. What potential life changes are we still considering and not doing? And... what changes will we truly make? Is it fear or apathy that helps us stay stuck when the gritty irritation of needing to shake it up still pesters for us? Thanks for the challenge in your musings today and I’m printing this one off! A start? (Maybe I’ll list our condo on a house swap site today! Anyone in Vancouver want a year in Kelowna?) Happy holidays. Hope you enjoy time surrounded by loved ones and all the best for you in 2016!, JH, Kelowna, BC
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