My husband and daughter recently went on a week-long trip, leaving me all alone, save for two silly medium sized-dogs and a cat.
My preconceived notion of what would happen: by minute five, I would be looking around wildly, wearing a minidress, with the walls taking the shapes of hands reaching out to get me. Half an hour later, I would be huge-eyed and prowling the joint with a butcher knife, slicing invisible foes. And, eventually, myself. My family would arrive home to find happy animals gnawing contentedly on my meaty bones.
But it didn’t go that way. In fact, I had a whale of a time. Life surprised me with a no-cost and deeply magnificent me-treat.
The first night they were gone, I didn’t come straight home from work. Instead, I went to a health food store and loaded up on nutritious stuff to eat while they were away. Taking as much time as I wanted to sniff a great quantity of health and beauty products, I felt the air around me change. I was alone. If my car broke down, if I tripped on the stairs, if I saw a thing on the internet. There was no one to hear my cries or giggles.
Later that night, time began to expand. I had nothing to do. Nowhere to go. No one wanted anything from me, and I wanted nothing from anyone. I was truly home free.
What is it about being alone for any stretch of time that causes pantlessness? Soon I found myself chilling in my underwear and a T-shirt, like every single-woman comic ever. This ensemble lends itself to lounging like a melted clock everywhere imaginable. Couches, beds, floors. Even though I went to work as usual every day, it didn’t break my reverie. I felt each night rolling over me like a warm black wave of dissolution.
I did complete some projects, though. I painted a nightstand, and moved a large bookcase, and put some new knobs on some closets. I sorted out things and dispatched them. I cleaned out my closet. Since I didn’t want to go shopping again, I ate all the food I bought, including aspirational items like 10-grain flax and quinoa tortillas and fennel. I made ratatouille. I cooked coconut curry. I baked a pumpkin loaf and ate the whole thing, standing, in my underwear. Both the maiden and spinster in me showed themselves.
The dogs weren’t as blissed out as me. They very much don’t like things to be irregular. This was everything irregular. They guarded me all night, which meant a lot of barking and running up and down the stairs and then feeling a little scared to come back up the stairs by themselves so I would have to go get them.
I stayed up much later than I normally would. Watched terrible movies, and didn’t finish them. I listened to the house and its sounds, audible or not. I entered into deeply wordless states. My heart beat. Leaves rustled in my window. Cars drove by at night, their shadows sliding over my bedroom walls. This glorious state is called “no mind,” I believe, and I didn’t have to go on a retreat or take a class or even sit on an swanky, dedicated cushion.
There was a full moon on the summer solstice – the legendary “honey moon” – and I took the dogs out for a viewing but I couldn’t see it anywhere, until I got a glimpse of a low golden disc through a small gap in the trees. It disappeared, so I had to walk a bit of a distance up to an empty field to see it. I wondered if I should be prowling around in the dark on my own, even with two “fierce” dogs to protect me? And I decided that I should. I walked up to the field, and looked at the moon, giant and amber-hued. I was fine. What was I thinking? Nothing. Nothing at all.
