Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Goodness! Yesterday was supposed to be cloudy and rainy but it remained sunny all day. Today was supposed to be cloudy and rainy in the morning and it’s sunny, with a high of 59 degrees. It will most likely rain later in the day, but I can’t complain. It’s beautiful out there.

On the wall in the office. A map of Paris that Don gave me for my birthday a year or so ago. A gold Paris/Eiffel Tower medal that I found in San Diego many years ago. And three Wallace Nuttings. It’s hard to get a clear photo because the sun pours in on either side of this wall. Those are sheep in the Nutting on the bottom right.

I finished M Train  by Patti Smith this morning and Don and I promptly traded books. I’ve now started Year of the Monkey. I really love her writing. She has a strong streak of the mystical in the way she sees life and those around her. She’s also a bit of a loner. As I am one, as well, I identify.

As more and more signs of an early Spring show themselves, I am treasuring this time to read with no distractions. Soon, the garden and clean-up will be calling me. The lawn will have to be mowed. I’ll be distracted – happily- by bees and bugs and butterflies and blooms. I saw the beginnings of one of my day lilies yesterday. The daffodils have started to poke through the ground.

So for the present, I’m fully into reading mode. And I’m so grateful for this time in life when I don’t have a 9 to 5 job that takes me away from my books. Been there, done that. I feel as if I’m heading into a stretch of non-fiction, what with the Patti Smith books, the book about the Seine, which I’m still reading, and some other books that are catching my attention over in my TBR piles.

That’s one of the joys of winter that I discovered this year in our attempt to live in the present season, to be patient, to fully see the beauty in the winter landscape. We are afforded the opportunity to hunker down and nest. And that includes reading.

I was discussing ‘alone time’ the other day with our friend, Doug. I’ve always had a great need for privacy and time with myself since I was a young girl. Whether this would have been in me no matter what, or whether it was shaped by four kids and two adults and a dog being crammed into a tiny bungalow, I don’t know. I just know that I need it. I need quiet and reading time, time for reflection, time away from the world. Happily, I am able to find that with Don right here in the house with me. He gives me space. He needs his space, as well. We compliment and support each other that way.

I’ve worked in the theater for most of my life; coaching and teaching. That means that when I was working, I was surrounded by lots of people all of the time. Lots of lively people. I had to be ‘on.’ (Teaching is rather like performing, at least in an acting program.) When I went home at the end of the day, I craved quiet. When I was teaching at Boston University and had the summers off, I was fully capable of being alone for weeks at a time. I would venture out, of course, and take a walk, run an errand, converse with the grocer or the clerk at the bookstore, but mostly, it was time to replenish my energy.

I have friends who are very social. They need to go out to lunch or go somewhere with some friends. I always felt they were normal and that I was not normal. But I now know that it’s normal for me and that there’s nothing wrong with it. I’m an introvert living and working in the theater. That may seem impossible, but there are more of us than you’d think!

Don is more social than I and that’s a good thing. He balances me and his spontaneous ideas for adventures get me out of the house. I’m pleased to say I’ve come up with a few spontaneous ideas as well.

As so often happens in these posts, I had no plans of writing about this, yet here we are. That’s what I love about blogging. I rarely know what will come up in a post.

Happy Tuesday.