quiet

To travel and get as much pleasure from it as I do... To be thrown into spinning orbits of planes, trains and auto-something-or-others, for all that to be great and wonderful means that my non-travel days have to be mellow. And they are.

With family scattered across the continent, I can't say that there are all that many demands placed on me by others here in Madison. Work, yes, that's everdemanding. But apart from that, it can be very quiet here at the loft for a very long time.

I cook just a wee bit, write more, rarely pick up the phone, keep plugged into the rest of the planet via my computer and think about things done and things in need of doing.

Thinking time is quiet time. This afternoon, with the sun warming the paths along the lake, I walked more than I have all Fall. My sometime travel companion, Ed, ever ready to participate in quietness and in anything even resembling hiking, walked along.

I had forgotten that I left a vehicle at Borders last night (don’t ask; I honestly did forget it) and so the goal was to walk there and pick it up. That’s it. After a tough and very long teaching day, the entire plan for the late afternoon was for me to walk to Borders, read, pick up car, return.

Such tranquil hours. Undisturbed. Like a duck on a limb, basking in the sun against the calm waters of a very very blue lake.




We climb up the hill behind Borders and a walk down, through the small forest in back of the bookstore.





I have a rushed trip to England next week. One day of work there, two days of play. This quiet time now puts me in the mood for the rush of travel. It’s a good balance for me.