Quiet is here, finally. It's 3:20 am and all I hear is the hum of the computer fan. All here are asleep but me, and the dark around the edge of the lone light in my office shining over my computer envelopes me like my quilt with a warmth that is finally calling to me. It's time to be off to the quiet of my bed.
At first when I wrote years ago I was a second shifter, but when I really began to do my columns well over three years ago I began to pull all nighters. It's funny how the uninterrupted silence that comes when all the world is asleep makes for the best writing and editing times. No phone calls, no people at the door, not even those constant questions from the kitchen...there is only the soft, thought provoking silence. I'm truly, finally tired.
Night all.
You left a comment on one of my blog posts about coming to my blog when you wake up and in doing so it lifts your spirits (or something to that effect :-)). The time that you posted that comment seemed late to me for you to be "getting up". NOW I understand! At 3:20 AM I would have been sleeping for a very long time!
ReplyDeleteLinda,
ReplyDeleteThat's how I wrote for my time at the newspaper. I am so terribly ADHD! So when it's quiet - I can remain focused. Besides, it is my time of the night now and we live on such a busy street that this is when it is quietest and sometime the most beautiful. If you saw my nighttime snow pics that's when they were taken - in the dark of the early morning. :-)
I was with you this morning at 3:30 it felt wonderful quiet and filled with serenity and I needed it.
ReplyDeleteHappy weekend..
Dorothy from grammology
grammology.com
Dorothy,
ReplyDeleteDon't know what it is about that time of night but I get so-o-o-o much done!! :-)
Have a great weekend too.
I suspected you were a nightowl!
ReplyDeleteEven in my heaviest university days, I just couldn't do it.I never, never did an all-nighter.
It's as if a switch goes off about 10:30(or earlier)and synapses just don't fire after that.
I think I have always been a night owl. I started doing it when my kids were little to have some me time a few nights a week to regenerate so I could keep up with three ADHD boys. It's where I could find peace and that's what I drew from those time. That was the time I read volumes of histories, biographies, and historical fiction by the likes of Antonia Fraser. It was what encouraged me to go back to college in many ways because I thirsted for more after all that reading!
ReplyDeleteI love writing at this time when everyone is asleep and all is quit. A good rain storm is really cool too. This is also the best kind of "tired." I think. Sleep is so welcomed at this point.
ReplyDeleteStephen Tremp
I so agree with you, Stephen! This is the best time for writing.
ReplyDeletethat's a beautiful computer spot. and i can feel the silence you are talking about. you are a poet.
ReplyDeleteThanks, CMF. I do like to play with my little digital camera! :-)
ReplyDeleteI used to be a night owl when I was younger, never going to bed before three. For a whole year, when I lived In Miami, I'd stay up all night to watch the sun rise out of the ocean, grab some breakfast, and then sleep until two in the afternoon. Now I'm the opposite: up at 6am, and half-asleep by 8pm. Now that I'm retired, I get lots of quality time alone, since my wife still works and my daughter is away at school. I really savor the quiet and solitude.
ReplyDeleteNothingprofound,
ReplyDeleteI started my night owl lifestyle when my kids were little because I could have a few moments to myself. It was easy because they went to school and I could sleep then.
Now it is simply who I am. I live on such a noisy busy street and the quiet at that hour is peaceful. (I did grow up in the country and the quiet.)
love "the soft, thought provoking silence"
ReplyDeleteglad you enjoyed the flowers. yep and tulip festival any minute now.