Spring Break - Day 1

Privacy is a vanishing commodity.  Not the privacy from government, not the privacy of prying eyes on the Internet, of hackers looking to steal your life's story through credit cards or ID #'s, but physical privacy, the ability to just be alone.

I miss that most now that I am unemployed.  I miss going to the office, doing my work, closing the door, and being alone.  Not the alone time of play (which I miss), or the alone time for the web (I miss that too), but I miss the physical separation of just being alone.

Perhaps that is why I like running so much, and why I have never run with a club or a team since high school.  I will run with you if you are cute, maybe, or if you have a tight ass wrapped in lycra, or because you make me laugh and because you know the name of every flower we pass, or maybe because your natural eye for beauty amazes me.

I'll go run with you to hear your story and help you burn away the tears, but mostly I run alone.  I'm not fast, I have only won a single race, years ago, an inconsequential race among teenagers just learning to stretch their legs and compete on the road.

I learned a long time ago that the solo run is what makes me smile.  I like beating my last time, lasting a mile longer, or getting up a little earlier, or making it up the hill a little faster.  The joy of being alone is that you don’t have to explain anything.  You don’t have to justify or outline or give the back-story, or have it make sense.  Your thoughts roam where they want, when they want, and if a neat cloud or a pretty bird, or a strange rock catches your eye, it’s OK to stop and look, or take a picture, without anyone wondering why.

I love taking pictures of things no one else noticed, things that aren’t “pretty” but to me, are beautiful, artistic, interesting, or simply a record of where I was at that moment, at that frozen moment in time.

Being alone is sometimes just sitting still.  Quiet.  Calmly.  Sometimes thinking deep thoughts, sometimesnot thinking anything at all.  I am not a yoga aficionado.  I do not meditate, I rarely even contemplate anymore, but, but…there are times when I can reach a state where I am gone until something brings me back.  Sometimes 10 seconds, sometimes an hundred, here I can just stop for a bit, and let my brain relax. 

I like being alone.  I like solitude.  I miss it.