I’m really enjoying this Developing Your Eye course. It challenges me daily to discover new things about how I view things like the Day 5 and Day 6 challenge on CONNECTION and SOLITUDE.
Ever pondered on how everything in life is connected?
It’s amazing how we so often take connections for granted. Connections that are obvious and those that are not but without which, none can be a full entity in the way you know it to be. Take family for instance. One cannot be a family with oneself. You need others. A home cannot be a home, without the investment of love and time in it. A chair cannot stand alone without nails, screws, wood, time, effort and interest. So, to show connections, I focused on one of my all time favourite Furnitures: my Rocking Chair. I first developed an ardent desire to own one when I was pregnant. I went round furniture shops looking for one, unfortunately there was none that fit into my budget . . . Oh well, that’s a story for another day. I eventually found one in another country. Those rocking chairs saw me through feverish nights induced by immunisations (vigil nights). Nights of solitude spent rocking my feverish angel and consoling myself so I don’t hit my sleeping husband with an ice pack.
As I got out of bed yesterday morning, I noticed the fixtures under my rocking chair and I realised they are a literal description of connections.
That chair is functional because it has all those connections that have been placed together to make it rock, be stable and be beautiful. And it connects me to my son, my husband, and memories of pleasurable times spent in solitude.
I have favorite spots in the house but my favorite Solitude spots are my Rocking chair and the Sofa in the parlor. Rocking away with a drink, a good book and light snacks or just lazing back with same things . . . Doesn’t matter, what matters is my Lil Genius is either asleep or out for a walk with his Dad and I’m home alone and able to unwind for about an hour.
Some people think of solitude as a bad thing, but it really isn’t. It doesn’t mean loneliness, it simply is a quiet time to be alone and think or unwind in whatever way you like. You can hear yourself think better when all is calm and that is when the soul refreshes it.