alone

how hard is it to really be 'alone'? We think we crave it, but when we get it we fill it, with noise and motion and meaningless activities. How hard can it be to just sit in silence? How long can you last, just sitting still and listening? I like my own company, really I do; so why do I find it so hard to do NOTHING? Guilt? of course, a major drawback to the old slacking process. Insidious guilt, eating up our freedom. ADD? partly, a twitch that is hard to control at the best of times, impossible when I am supposed to be quiet. Like Tourettes of the body and brain, the minute I have one bit under control, another leaks out. There go my legs, then my hands... I want to yell STOPPIT and just be able to lay, limp and yet somehow glamorously across the patio furniture. Instead of leaping up every five minutes to do something stupidly useless and futile. When we were kids, didn't we used to able to lie for hours in long grass, just watching the ants? Or stand motionless up to our knees in a clay bedded spring, watching sticklebacks and leaves swirl around in the sluggish current? If I lay on the ground now, talking to the cats or the baby coots, someone will assume I have had some sort of attack, and try to resuscitate me. Wait, that last boat had two quite attractive young Police men in it.. maybe - oh who am I kidding. They will throw cold canal water on me and make me wear a hat in the heat. Perhaps I had better develop a taste for gardening, or some other displacement activity?