sʃʃıɥ ǝɥʇ ɹoɟ pǝpɐǝɥ

My wife and child have been out of town for approaching a week. They are back east on their bi-annual visits to family. The house is still, and everything is where i threw it when i come back in the room. No sound, aside from the wind, the house’s creaks, the cat meowing at midnight, and my own feet on the floor.

I find myself sleepy at midnight, and wide awake at 9:30 am. That may sound like a luxurious schedule to you, but my customary hours are bed at 5:30 am and awake at 1 pm. Generally I wait until the house is still before i even begin to approach music, code, or putting pen to paper. The stillness seems to be permission for me. And I happily trade the daylight hours for quiet in my mind, and room to function without the intoxication of distractions… anything but work.

I have been listening to a lot of music, meeting with many friends, seeing a band, answering the telephone, out and busy a lot. I’ve done more in the world over the last five days than perhaps in the last two months combined. I love long conversations, people to meet, places to go, scooter rides spent pointing out just how many spoilers there are on stock automobiles, laughing with people and their pain, looking into the eyes of men who want to be better men, and smiling with them because in so wanting… they have already begun.

But I hate this empty house. This terrible, sunny, pleasant place is a tomb without the stomping feet of my son. The laughter of my wife.

I am a very lucky man. I have a rare opportunity to stop whatever I’m doing and walk upstairs and spend a moment with my people. At any time in the day. I make a cameo appearance five or six times a day. Can you imagine being able to get up from your desk, feeling you need a break, and walk less than 20 feet and play with the world’s most wonderful little boy for half an hour before returning to work? Lucky, hunh? The blessing is not lost on me. And it doesn’t take absence to impress it upon me.

The cycle is familiar. The first day or two I am grateful for the silence. I bathe, order my things, do the dishes and make sure everything’s ok. The next couple of days are filled with people, dinners, meetings, and activity. And the last few days are spend with a little ache, waiting for my family to return.

The guilty pleasure of isolation has passed, the grateful appreciation of a man blessed with so many friends who want to see me, eat with me, talk to me has also passed. Now i’m ready to hug my wife, and smell my son’s clean hair, and feel their cool, wet kisses on my cheeks.

Come Wednesday night, or perhaps Thursday morning…