Isolation

I don't mean this to sound dark. I really don't. Read it more in a rainy day sort of voice - where theres a lot of rain and wind outside. But you're inside with a blanket and tea so while you can't really go anywhere you're not really bothered by it either sort of voice. If you read it like that you wont misunderstand me.



I have been, for roughly six months now, in state of semi-isolation. I quit my job to stay home with my daughter who, while being perfectly human and whole, does not speak or convey opinions and therefore does not bring with her much of the feeling of being with another human.

While, initially, the concept of quitting my job brought with it the promise of doing much more of whatever it is I want to do with my time, I find myself more often doing exactly the opposite. That is, I find myself more often doing absolutely nothing at all.

I have put together a number of excuses for this all of which have some validity but not really enough to justify the amount of nothing I really do. I tell myself I am resting, fighting an illness, giving my child a peaceful life, practicing contentment and mindfulness, homemaking etc. etc.

Now, I could go on and on about the pros and cons of being a stay at home. But what I really have been thinking about lately is how differently I behave now when I go out because of how much I stay at home.

When I go out I don't mind talking to strangers. Even ones who are annoying, creepy or odd. This isn't out of loneliness. You might think I am only saying that as a cover up but, genuinely, it's not. Staying at home makes me think more. And when I go out I see people and am naturally compelled to wonder about their story, their personhood and personality. When I go home I think about them. So when I am out I gather as much of them as I can to consider during the days when I am alone.

Staying home has made me a people watcher and a people learner. A student of body language, facial expressions and reactions, emotional displays, language and verbiage and all the little tells people allow that explain what goes on inside. I do not claim to have gained some sort of super power. I'm merely a student. And I wasn't before.

And the nothing. The whole lot of nothing that I do has made me appreciate the action in the pause.

When I do that is all I do. Action does not allow much being. When I am moving I am rarely also feeling, smelling, seeing, touching, tasting. I am doing. When I am doing nothing I find that it is as if I am relearning the desire to look for other signs of being beyond the 'do' the 'act' and the 'move'. I grow to appreciate the 'am' and the 'be' and the 'is'.

I have always been a person that uses stories to distract, to entertain, and to motivate me.Words were another form of passage for me to move me from here to there and this to that. If I wanted something to be real I wrote it into reality. I lived it through words and sometimes those words became the way that I really lived. But I was never a person very contented with being. Overfilling my schedule to make sure there was never a time of "boredom" or "non-productivity".

I could say a lot about balance but I will spare you. My only goal was to share some of this feeling that isolation has shared with me. Of going to a place filled with people and doing nothing but being. Letting them do all the doing so that you can experience the do through their presence.

I used to think this feeling was a spell that certain few people in my life could cast on me. I still sort of think that. But it is a spell I have learned to access for myself. And it's like a lot of rain and wind outside but you're inside with a blanket and tea so while you can't really go anywhere you're not really bothered by it either...