“Winter Solitude” by Patricia DeWit
Kim is the host of this week’s Haibun Monday at the dVerse poet’s pub. Kim says:
For this week’s Haibun Monday, write about solitude: it could be meditative solitude, solitude in nature, or just plain old sitting alone in your room solitude. That’s up to you. But you should write no more than three tight paragraphs about solitude, followed by a traditional haiku that includes reference to a season.
Since I’ve already written about the pheasant, I did another one not about the pheasant.
Even when it is quiet in the house, there is white noise: the refrigerator, sounding like an organic distressed beast; the aquarium’s pump and splashing water, depending on how much water has evaporated from it; the computer tower’s low-pitched hum; the low piercing thread of the wifi router; my sporadic monologues while reading or writing; the fan or vaporizer at night while sleeping.
My family and friends understand I like and must have my solitude. They don’t blow up my phone with texts and calls. There is a pleasant routine to the contacts. Monthly lunch dates with various friends one-on-one, where we always meet on the same date or day of the month. The former co-workers who are also friends meet about every two weeks as a group at cheap lunch locations. My sons and their significant others visit every other Sunday, where we play board games. These minimal social interactions punctuate a life of solitude.
Born into winter’s
realm, the hermit lives her days
loved, known, accepted.
Tao Talk 
Wow!
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Sweet
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Thank you, Sabio.
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This was a great description of tge constrant drone of life. There is no escape. Even in nature it is not silent, but certainly more pleasant, your second stanza and the haiku were great together!
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drone is a perfect word for it. white noise is ok with me. i’ve had dreams of complete black silence and it was unnerving. glad you thought the 2nd stanza and the haiku went well together :)
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Lovely haiku and “her” as hermit! Well captured!
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Thanks Jordy!
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That is so true, Jade! In our modern world we never really experience natural silence, we are so accustomed to white noise. I’m glad my fridge doesn’t sounds line ‘an organic distressed beast’! How lovely to have your solitude respected and to have it punctuated by social interactions, rather than bombarded by them. I love the haiku about a female hermit – male ones should be ‘hismits’!
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lol on the hismits :)
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It takes healthy boundaries to safeguard such a lifestyle. Good for you.
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thank you.
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You are welcome.
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When is there ever real silence anymore? I recall a long conversation a year ago on this with a friend. He was talking about how even when he seeks silence he can’t find it- he can always hear the traffic on the nearby road- always some kind of white noise as you have mentioned. I also like to have my “me time” but I have very little if any silence- there is always something. Music or television on- the fan on at night- the traffic from the road which isn’t far away. Even when I go for a walk- I have my IPOD going. Sometimes I think a little silence would be nice. There is a local state park-where you’d think you could at least go for a walk in the woods to some silence- but even there- it is close enough to the interstate where those sounds invade. Anyway.
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I know exactly what you mean, Hans. When I try to get to a truly quiet place, I will listen to see if I can hear traffic or other human generated racket. Sadly most of the time I can’t. One of the few places I have found where it is truly free from “humanoise” is when I go down to Lake Michigan. It’s never quiet quiet there, but the sound of the water drowns out anything in the vicinity, plus the place I go has no dwellings and very little traffic (at least this time of year). Out back here you can always hear traffic, chainsaws, or gunshots, and this is a ways out. That’s really too bad that you can’t even go to the state park for a little silence :(
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I probably need to search a little harder for the silence. But I do think it is very difficult to find. Quiet is a good thing. Another thing I don’t get- is how some people always have to be busy- and around other people. I have a friend who can’t sit still- and he has to have people around all the time to entertain him. I’ve always been more of a loner.
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You can only be so much of a loner when you’re married, as you are sharing a home with someone. One of the (many) issues that I had with my ex-boyfriend was that he refused to respect my need for solitude. He was a boisterous person who was like your friend, always busy and always needed someone around. I made a big mistake in thinking he, so full of life, would draw me out of my hermitage, but instead it caused endless grief.
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Kind of a miss match it sounds like. My wife is like me- but quieter. I think a person is the way they are.
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for some noise can create a vacum to think in like music in the background, i doubt i can work with white noise. you guard your solitude so well, and i salute you for this
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Thank you again, Gina :)
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One of my daughters tried a session in a sensory deprivation tank; she said it was fine, but she was somewhat distracted by her own body noises, like her growling tummy, he he. I don’t think I would do well inside one of those tanks; like you, I like my white noise.
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Let’s face it, life is noisy! I’m ok with it.
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Wow.. Brilliant!
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Thank you, Richa!
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Sounds like a whirl of social activity to me :)
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Wow, you must be really out in the sticks! Are you ok with how things are for you where you are at?
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It’s rural. We’re only a couple of miles from the town with the railway station, but I never go in. Husband goes to the market once a week but he leaves before I’m awake. I spoke to the nearest neighbour yesterday (he passed me in his car) for the first time since last November. Nobody walks here so you tend not to see anyone to speak to. I don’t mind.
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thank you for a snapshot of you in your environment.
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Pretty stationary. Easy to snap :)
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:)
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I love how you have structured your life with those wonderful interactions and the solitude that treats you well
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it works well most of the time…
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“organic distressed beast” – that’s glorious. This is a lovely piece.
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Thank you, Nora. I’ve had several refrigerators over the years, and none have sounded like this one!
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I’m always amazed how quiet my apartment gets when I shut off my computer. It is a gaming machine, and the tower has FIVE fans. The other noises, the ones you mention, pale in comparison and I don’t notice them once the computer is off. I think I live in quiet. Nope. Solitude, yes. So glad the others in your life accept the need for hermitness. (ok, WP just accepted “hermitness” as a word?)
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