While on my New Mexico adventure I went to San Miguel Church with Dawg. While there I was sitting quietly but there were women chattering around me, complaining that they had been incorrectly told by someone not employed by the church that they could not take photos of the inside. I did my introverted-bordering-on-autistic “thing” of quickly standing up and running off without any warning and moved several rows back. I happened to land directly in front of Dawg, but I faced forward. Dawg and I sat in silence, our silence completely separate even though I was near him. I felt at peace. I had no plans of ever getting up from that spot. But the church was about to close and so we had to go.
I’ve thought about that quiet time a lot since. I’m not sure what I think about it specifically. I don’t want to go to church for The Church Part, but in a city that never sleeps it’s really nice to have a place of solitude without being alone.
That’s the way I felt on the bench when I disappeared from everyone. I almost didn’t come back but then Geeky Tai Tai found me and I had to.
That’s what it’s like when you go underwater in the pool and sit on the bottom.
I couldn’t survive without my quiet places. I have to make them myself, but I’d be batshit nuts without them.
I have a severe lack of quiet places. I think it’s a city think.
We need an ice fortress.
I think everyone needs that quiet place where they can just…be. No noise, no problems, just a nice silence.
St. Patrick’s is big enough that you can just slide in there once in a while and have solitude without being alone. And it’s usually open even when there’s no mass.
And any other Catholic church is probably open during the day too. Especially during confession hours (people are waiting to confess or doing their contrition, so it’s quiet).
People underestimate the need for quiet time and solitude.
I wish I had more solitude. You can have alone time and still not have solitude, if you know what I mean…