Tag Archives: quiet

Introverts, Phobics, Nature Lovers, and Compulsive Overthinkers

Posted in Anxiety, Humor, Introverts, Nature and the Outdoors by
Photo Credit: MeckiMac via Compfight cc

Photo Credit: MeckiMac via Compfight cc

I’m wondering if there is a connection between people who are introverts, phobics, nature lovers and compulsive over-thinkers. I belong to each of these tribes.

Here’s a scenario to illustrate.

I go to the park to exercise. Ha Ha, I lie. I go to the park, but not really to exercise. Mostly I go to the park to walk for a short time, and to sit down on a bench for a long time. I choose a bench by the lake, where I can sit, look, listen, read, write, or just think. If I’m lucky I might be rewarded by the sight of a double-breasted cormorant swallowing a fish. That happened last year, and it was a glorious moment.

On the first warm day this year, the snow has melted, and I decide it’s time to go back to my park.  I take my perfunctory short walk, and I sit down on my favorite bench. Ah, spring is almost here. I fill my senses.

A woman comes strolling down the path, stops at my bench and asks, “Mind if I sit down?”

Like the true wimp I am, I answer, “Go ahead.”

I need solitude and nature like I need food, and this woman has killed it for me.

I dream of making her dead. What would be the best way? I could throw her off a bridge, but that would be very difficult for me because I am afraid of things that are up high in the air, like bridges, and airplanes.

Hmm. I’ll have to think that through. Perhaps I ought to make a plan to plan to plan. I’ve been planning this blog post for a long time, way too long.

I wonder what two of my favorite authors would say.  Scott Stossel wrote  My Age of Anxiety…Fear, Hope, Dread and the Search for Peace of Mind. Susan Cain wrote Quiet…The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking. I wonder if they have ever met? I hope so.

I’m on my way to explore a blog I have just discovered when I searched for Stossel and Cain. It’s called “The Dedicated Amateur” and it is written by Amma Marfo. You can find her blog  at: http://ammamarfo.com/.

In the meantime, I will be worrying about something.

Do You Live With The Invisible Man?

Posted in Annoyances, Humor, Life, Nature and the Outdoors by

href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/13775090@N07/2181356718/">Roberto F. via Compfight cc

I think, my dear husband, Jerome the Great and Good, missed a couple of physics lessons in school. He must have cut the classes on Light and Sound.

Jerome, usually a very smart man, misunderstands the physics of light.

For example, when he comes into the kitchen for his early morning coffee, even though it is dark outside, he opens the vertical blinds and puts on the overhead light.  This makes me crazy because I am a private person.  He justifies his behavior by saying, “It’s dark outside, and no one can see in.”  See what I mean about the physics?

Wearing my flimsy negligee (Yeah, sure.) I enter the brightly lighted kitchen, and run to close the blinds.

“No one can see you,” he says, and then he adds, “and who would be looking anyway?”

You know the movie, Gaslight, where the husband tries to make the wife think she’s going nuts?  I just thought I would mention it.

Jerome is not too swift with the physics of sound transmission either.

“You are too loud,” I often say to him when we are sitting outside.  As I said, I am a private person.

He tells me I am obsessed with what the neighbors think.

Here’s an example.

We enjoy outdoor meals on our deck, with wine. Once a decade, when our neighbors’ lawn mowers, tractors, zappers, hedge trimmers, leaf blowers, and chain saws are not on, our little backyard is gloriously quiet. Ah, stillness. I can hear the fluttering of the birds’ wings. Jerome and I converse. We sip our wine. He shares a story about his day. He uses a bad word. Trust me, the word is not “doodyhead.”

“Shh,” I say gesturing to our backyard. “The neighbors will hear you. There are kids out there, you know.”

Although Jerome was absent for the physics session on sound, he has perfected the physics of motion. He gets an A+ for Eye-Rolling. This silent movement is directed at me. “No one can hear,” he says, and then to prove his point, he shouts, “Doodyhead! Doodyhead! Doodyhead!”

I cringe. My neighbors used to think Jerome and I were upstanding citizens.

I want to throw a plate of something at him. But I don’t, because my neighbors will see, and then, they will all hear me say “doodyhead” back to him, and I will be arrested, and sent away, and my children will have no one to overprotect them, ever again.

He says I worry too much.  I’m worried about that.

 

 

Photo: href=”https://www.flickr.com/photos/13775090@N07/2181356718/”>Roberto F. via Compfight cc