It’s been a while since I’ve deliberately set aside “vacation” time over the end-of-year holiday season. With the quiet of the pandemic and the increasing activity online, I think I need to cut back my hours interacting with people. While I was working freelance, especially during the busiest of those thirty years, I set aside the Christmas and New Year’s Day weeks as a quiet space in the midst of all the activity. We cut down holiday visits from two households to one, when my parents no longer wished to entertain, and since, the expanding families in my husband’s line have resulted in his siblings refocusing, also.
Until the pandemic came along and the virtual face-to-face interactions popped up via Meet and Zoom, Discord, and other venues, I felt…safe from disruptions. Now, I need to mark off blocks of solitude, again. Gathering/settling time for us—our family unit of adults and dogs. And space for quiet reengagement with and within my self.
open book
comfort of silence
blank pagesno voices
clamor for our time
but our own
