20151010.0650

My parents are up at Sherwood Cottage, as I have noted, and things are going well. My dad and I spent much of yesterday building bookshelves, replacing some of the particle-board constructions the Mrs. and I had had in place with actual wood. The shelves are sturdy, although unfinished; we have yet to paint or stain them. Something about the fresh-cut lumber smell satisfies, though, and having to worry less about whether or not Ms. 8 will fall through the shelves as she tries to climb them (she usually does not need to be warned away from the ascent attempt, but there are times...) is a relief. That I have seen how the work is done also helps; I may be able to do similar things in the future, if there is need. (There will be need.)

As I write, my parents, my wife, and my daughter are all asleep. Some part of me thinks that I should also be asleep, taking advantage of the time to get some rest, if nothing else. Another part, not far from it, suggests that I do not do well to take the time to write that I do, that I should instead attend to matters of family. Enjoying the quiet of the morning seems a betrayal to that part of me, a favoring of solitude to company, of being alone to being a family man. It comes off as somehow selfish, regardless of being a thing to which I am accustomed (and that I am thus accustomed seems a confirmation that I am largely selfish, with the implications thereof). It might be different were I bowing even now to the truth that work continues, but I am not--at least, not yet. (I am sure it will come.)

I love my family, certainly. I am glad to have them about me. But I am an introvert; being around even the comfortable and familiar folks who are my family is, for me, and outpouring rather than an indrawing. The well from which I irrigate my fields is one that replenishes in the quiet hours, filling itself with reading and quiet contemplation and writing that encodes ideas found therein. To be sure, much of what there is to read this morning is not of the sort that promotes serenity--although, following my regular practice, I am not going to discuss them much, if at all--but dropping a bucket into the well and pulling it, filled, back up is soothing. The very act of reading, of passing eyes over pages and making meaning from pixels or pen-strokes or print-marks seen thereupon, offers ease and comfort. Or it does to me; I know that there are many who find such things more draining that ditch-digging, and there are times I envy them the bounded nature of their work and the easy camaraderie that many of them have with one another and with others yet. The world is built for extroverts, after all, and being on winning teams tends to be better than the inverse...

But I hear people up and about, now. And, as I have said, I am glad to have them about me. Perhaps I ought to show it them.