My hours

I want to tell you about the torrent of ideas, issues and emotions that have stormed my horizon just today. (But I won't because you've got your own.)  I want to tell you because I'm thinking a lot about this thing someone said to me about adulthood - how it's a matter of realizing you only get twenty-four hours a day and some things you will do and some you will not and the things you choose to fit into a day define you.  

I want to be honest with you because I want to be honest with myself.  Of the things I believe deep down define me, very few are currently making it into my twenty-four hours.  And this is more and more troubling.

I'm a writer.  Did you know that?

I told you?

Well.  Technically a writer is one who writes and, well... this is pretty much it, kiddos.  I've got this and I've got a (lovingly & generously designed) database full of snippets and ideas.  It's meant to be a virtual library of my work, but right now it's pretty much just a sieve.  And while I'm grateful every idea doesn't wash down the drain, I am also starting to feel a bit panicky about the fact that I'm more of an idea-er than a writer.

Why'm I telling you this?  

So that it is told.

Tomorrow I go into the woods alone for approximately ninety-six hours of silence.  For wilderness.  For dirt and rain and wind.  For glorious, glorious silence.  Last June I went on a similar retreat for two days and didn't speak the whole time - well, I slipped to greet a dog.  I didn't want him to think I wasn't happy to see him, so the sounds just popped out of my mouth.  But I felt restored by those two days in a deep, fundamental way.  This year, I'm upping the dosage.  For someone who absorbs as much as I do and who is as busy as I seem to be all twenty-four hours of each of my days and who spends hours and hours each week with live rock music, silence is a balm.

I will be silent.

I will be alone.

I will be unwebbed.

I will be unplugged.

I think I will probably even bury all time-telling implements in the ground (with a treasure map for when I have to leave again) and live by the sun and the full moon.

I have no idea what conclusions I will come to, if any, while I am out there.  But I know I will hear my heartbeat in my ears.