The Quiet before the Storm...

For the first time since I can remember, I have the house to myself for about two hours. The kids are all out, hubby with one of them, the dog is collapsed on the kitchen floor after an all day work out at doggie day care and I. Am. ALONE.

It is a treasure not to be tossed away. Quiet. Solitude. Heaven.

Yeah, I know. I should be writing, right? Well, it's a weird thing. I'm so used to writing in chaos (subway trains, skating rinks, waiting rooms) that actually writing while there is nothing distracting in my world is a bit ... distracting. Oh, it's not that I couldn't. But I'm cooking a dinner for one. I'll read the paper. Write the blog. All selfish, solitary things that I usually do in rushed-I-only-have-so-much-time-I better-not-waste-it mode.

But for now, in the quiet, I will calm a usually flustered mind. I know the next few days will be busy, after all. Daughter two to have oral surgery tomorrow, hockey play offs, mother coming to stay for a week. All out of the ordinary busy things to take me away from writing. And yet, I don't take this small window of solitude to write when I have the time and the quiet. Because I know I need my mind to calm sometimes. So, when I need the words in those snatches of distracted writing time, they'll be there. Because I've taken the time. For me.

I hope all my fellow writers do the same. The words are always there. Quiet time - REAL quiet time is rare and precious. Enjoy it.