Being Alone
by GrowingFlowers
I was able to go away for almost an entire week. It was for a conference of the AABC (American Association of Birth Centers). I left near sunset on my daughter’s Birthday. We had already celebrated a bunch with a trip to Ojo, yummy homemade pudding pie, gifts on our sun-soaked patio, I was packed and ready to go.
The drive to Albuquerque was with the sun in my eyes through the canyon, but the trees were positively glowing in the fall light. Golds and yellows – you know that feeling and I have certainly written about it – beauty you want to consume! I listened to music in my quiet car, almost unable to believe that I was alone. No children. Nobody. Strange and even surreal. I’m not sure I have spent significant time alone in over 17 years. (I mean more than a few hours.) Imagine.
I enjoy it too.
It is always so interesting to leave our little town. Flying into a different culture – and Florida could certainly be a different culture. A different country. Tropical, humid. It smells a bit mildewy. Louder, maybe. I surely didn’t see very much. The inside of the resort hotel and snippets and some minutes and walks on the beach. Sunrise and Sunset.
Lots of workshops, meetings. Administrative and Clinical. New faces and some I knew. I love that sort of thing. I love the knowledge, the newness and my feeling of wanting to soak it all in. Again – that consume thing.
So I gathered it up to take home with me.
It is now in a glass beer stein given to Falko by his grandfather. He’s a bit worried that the shells may scratch it. I promised him they wouldn’t. So I woke up early, drank coffee from thick white mugs, ate the resort’s breakfast, and took notes and more notes.
I worked up the courage to finally meet some new midwives on the last night. Ordered a beer and a burger and we sat outside near the sand trading stories in the very lukewarm and thick night air. Love the stories and the similarities among midwives. We all share the same trials. The same joys. The work.
We’re not so alone in this after all.
Lovely post, I enjoy your blog. Alone time is important and I am still learning to do it. Just finished reading A Year By the Sea by Joan Anderson and Wild from lost to found the pacific crest trail by Cheryl Strayed. Very brave women, not sure if I could do it though, a weekend is enough for me.
Forgot to mention…Not sure if you get the BBC television series ‘Call the midwife’ in the US. It currently is on Sunday evenings here in Australia and such a love series. I am not a midwife but am really enjoying it. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01b2w7d
I do! I actually ordered the dvd from Amazon.UK, because I just couldn’t wait to see it! I LOVE it.
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Synchronicity, indeed!
So glad your time away was nourishing, as mine was. And yes – appreciation for those at home is heightened after time away. That’s why time away is NECESSARY now and then, I think!