On Being Alone in October

I like my own company. I want to say that first, because it is true, and because people tend to hear alone and assume something has gone wrong.

Most evenings I make tea, open the window a little, and let the sound of the rain fill the room. It is a good kind of quiet. Nobody needs anything from me. I do not have to be anyone in particular.

But some evenings the quiet is a little too wide. The light goes gold for ten minutes before the clouds take it back, and I catch myself wanting to turn to someone and say, look. Not to explain anything. Just to share the looking.

I don’t think those two things cancel each other out. You can be at peace with being alone and still hope, gently, that you won’t always be.

---

The light came back for a moment tonight. I looked at it anyway.