Solitary Gratitude

I am alone and, for that, I am grateful

For three hours tonight, I sat in a hot bath tub until it turned tepid. Each time it did, I would let some water seep out to be replaced with scorching, stinging-hot liquid. I read my latest love, eat pray love by Elizabeth Gilbert – a gift I received from my Aunt at the infamous dinner a couple weeks ago. I read, for the most part, the entire middle section – 31 of the 36 chapters contained therein. I surprised myself by finishing that part of the book and feeling tears stream down my face as I did so.

I am alone and, for that, I am grateful.

My daughter is at her father’s house, probably snuggled in her covers and drifting off to sleep as I write this. My father and his wife are serving their God down at the Family History Center doing what my father says is the decisive factor (divisive?) in the ultimate rightness of the Only True Church on the Face of the Earth. He is emotionally demonstrative when he tells about the miracles in leading throngs of people – LDS and non-LDS alike – along paths to find their Old Uncle Joe or Great Aunt Mims. Dad says that, because the LDS church searches for, and then does the temple work for, long-deceased ancestry, it sets them apart from everyone else. He says that the extraordinary and outrageous stories that run rampant through the genealogy field occur because those souls are on the other side, impatient for their work to be done. Thus, The Church.

However, I digress. That is not the reason for my writing tonight. I am writing because I am alone and, for that, I am grateful.

The bathroom is a sweaty, steamy place now with the tangy smell of “processing” clinging to the moisture. (If you have ever been in a room where “processing” has taken place, then you know the smell. If you haven’t, it’s hard to describe. Imagine... sweaty socks on mushrooms.) I feel lighter than I did when I went in weighted with the day and worries and questions. It seems that somewhere in the steam and the tears, something released.

Midway through the 29th chapter I had read tonight, I suddenly realized how still the house was. I stopped, startled by the silence and the profound stillness of nothing. I almost stopped breathing. And, inside me, I felt the thing move that started forming when I stepped into my brother’s house. It pulsed alive and I looked at it, all sparkling and vibrant. There, in the bathroom, alone and feeling grateful for the serenity, I realized, yet again, my profound need for that very thing - serene space. I realized, yet again, that this year is about creating that.

I am alone tonight and, for that, I am grateful.