Filling the Well

I admit it. I have a secret fantasy.

I dream of escaping my daily responsibilities for a while. Perhaps a solitary vacation like Anne Morrow Lindbergh experienced. The wife of the aviator, Charles Lindbergh, spent a month on a quiet island, reflecting on her life. (She later published her thoughts in the wonderful little book Gift from the Sea.)

How I'd love a break from responsibility--no kids, no toilets to clean, no errands. Just a month to think, to rediscover myself.

The most I have ever been able to manage is 24 hours. My husband took the kids to the Great Wolf Lodge last May and I had plenty of time to myself. It was wonderful--at least until the dog snuck up on my bed to steal the chocolate orange I left on my nightstand. I spent the rest of the time cleaning up after him. It wasn't quite what I had planned.

How quickly I've forgotten the days when it was just me, waiting for someone to come along to share life with. I spent many a Sunday afternoon, just me and my journal, reflecting. And I wanted nothing more than to not be alone.

Fast forward almost twenty years. I write this in a home surrounded by my husband, two daughters, our dog and our parakeet. Well, I was trying to write. It was hard to gather my thoughts with the constant chatter and occasional entertaining commercial of the big game. And my husband insisting I watch every nice play at least twice. ;)

So I headed to my front porch to find some quiet.

Yet all I can hear is the sounds of the game through our neighbors' windows. (And my dog breathing heavily at the door, trying to smell me back into the house.)

And I wonder if maybe what I am looking for is just a bit of quiet in this 24-hour shopping and media world.

Mrs. Lindbergh wrote,

"Women, who used to complain of loneliness, need never be alone any more. We can do our housework with soap-opera heroes at our side. Even day-dreaming was more creative than this; it demanded something of oneself and it fed the inner life. Now, instead of planting our solitude with our own dream blossoms, we choke the space with continuous music, chatter and companionship to which we do not even listen. It is simply there to fill the vacuum. When the noise stops there is no inner music to take its place. We must re-learn to be alone."

I do not want to give up the privilege of being a wife and a mother. That is a gift too precious to squander. But maybe what I am really looking for is a few quiet moments to center myself, to fill my well in order to give my best to my family. Time with no pressure to do anything for anyone else except for myself.

It need not be a month. It can be half an hour on a porch, even with the sounds of the game in the background.