{"id":343,"date":"2011-01-06T03:49:30","date_gmt":"2011-01-06T08:49:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.katrinakenison.com\/?p=343"},"modified":"2011-01-06T03:49:30","modified_gmt":"2011-01-06T08:49:30","slug":"solitude-a-note-to-readers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/solitude-a-note-to-readers\/","title":{"rendered":"Solitude"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cSolitude is the soul’s holiday, an opportunity to stop doing for others and to surprise and delight ourselves instead.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2014\u00a0 Katrina Kenison<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It\u2019s the first day I\u2019ve been alone for three weeks.\u00a0 Henry left for a month in London on Monday.\u00a0 Then I drove Jack back to school and got home last night in time for a late dinner and bed.\u00a0 This morning: silence.\u00a0 I\u2019m feeling a little blue, sad that these weeks of intense family togetherness have come to an end. The to-do list awaits and the house needs a good post-holiday cleaning from top to bottom. No one is asking for pancakes.<\/p>\n

I remind myself that my boys are off doing exactly what they should be doing, out in the world. \u00a0And I am alone here, with a pile of work put off \u00a0until January and \u00a0a choice to make. \u00a0I can give in to loneliness and letdown as I strip sheets off beds and clean out the refrigerator, or I can allow myself \u00a0a little mini-vacation of the spirit, the pleasure of appreciating my own company. \u00a0The chance to take a deep breath, begin to catch up with myself, and create something new in this new year.<\/p>\n

I tell myself that after a couple of weeks of cooking, talking, negotiating, joking, cajoling, laughing, and just generally focusing all of my time and attention and energy outward, it will feel good to pause and be still.\u00a0 To turn inward and reconnect with my own quiet center.<\/p>\n

And so, feeling a little radical, I even resist the urge to turn on my computer this morning, savoring instead a more complete aloneness than the internet will allow.\u00a0 I have a cup of coffee, kiss my husband good-bye, do some yoga,\u00a0 watch the sky brighten. \u00a0Gradually, my heart lightens, too.<\/p>\n

And then I flip open my laptop, start looking through my e-mail backlog from the last week or so, and find this quote waiting for me, sent by a reader.\u00a0 \u201cDid you see,\u201d she wrote in her note from December 27, \u201cyou were Oprah\u2019s quote of the day.\u201d\u00a0 Sure enough, there is my name, beneath these words I have no memory of ever writing.<\/p>\n

Slowly, it comes back to me.\u00a0 Ten years ago, I wrote an article for the Oprah magazine about solitude.\u00a0 This, I realize, is what I must have said back then.\u00a0 As if I had it all figured out.\u00a0 It does sound kind of wise and knowing. But this morning, a decade and change later, I\u2019ve had to learn the truth of these words all over again, as if I had never written them at all.<\/p>\n

It must just be that we mortals never really get life all figured out.\u00a0 The brain may be overachieving and whip-smart, but the soul is a remedial, wayward student, forever forgetting yesterday\u2019s lessons.\u00a0 I\u2019ve always known that one reason I write is to remind myself to do as I say.\u00a0 Now, I\u2019m also realizing that I have to keep learning and practicing the same things over and over again — silence, patience, acceptance, faith, gratitude for what is — until slowly, bit by bit, what I know to be true becomes who I am.\u00a0 To say that it\u2019s a process is an understatement.\u00a0 It is, I suppose, the work of a lifetime.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cSolitude is the soul’s holiday, an opportunity to stop doing for others and to surprise and delight ourselves instead.\u201d \u2014\u00a0 Katrina Kenison It\u2019s the first day I\u2019ve been alone for three weeks.\u00a0 Henry left for a month in London on Monday.\u00a0 Then I drove Jack back to school and got home last night in time […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15183,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,22,35,40,8,47,14],"tags":[268,384],"class_list":{"0":"post-343","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-acceptance","8":"category-change","9":"category-letting-go","10":"category-mindfulness","11":"category-parenting","12":"category-solitude","13":"category-soul-work","14":"tag-loneliness","15":"tag-solitude-2","16":"entry"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/600x600.png?fit=600%2C600","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}