Waiting for the perfect dusk and when it arrives in painterly form - burnt orange sun, tall chimney smoke, birds in flock - you think this image is all you need to watch time slide by. I picked up Susan Cain's Quiet (Page One, paperback form) in the midst of too many books on backlog (this is what happens with Kindle), and having the misfortune/luck of two all-nighters resulting in work from home next day, I'm really relishing in the mode of being alone and doing one thing at once like, listening to This American Life while lying on the couch instead of running/biking while listening to a podcast. Beijing never slowed down for me since the day I arrived. I haven't stopped working, socializing, dating, running, biking since coming here two years ago, and the result, evidently, is an introvert forced into the jacket of an extrovert. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to learn in the years of pursuing writing that what I really want out of a career is to be with people. I don't think one is necessarily more noble than the other, but just that long, extended, disciplined periods of solitude isn't for me. Learning to work with people -- whether it's co-workers, vendors, clients -- is one of the most valuable experiences I've had in the past year, and will carry me through whatever artistic or professional route I want to pursue, but lately (or maybe for the past year) I'm slowly coming to grasp the importance of being alone, and how it is absolutely ok to not fill your weekends with outings and gatherings.
You see, sitting here in the nook and just watching the sun dip past the horizon, staring at two middle-aged western men wearing heavy grayish Cold War era coats, or noticing the fact that the street lamps go up at exactly 5:05PM (now who gets to decide such a thing) provide just as a nuanced moment as coffee with a friend. In these hours of the pause, our body and mind learns to restore and reflect, organize and ready itself for creation.
In the era of Go Go Go and celebration of the extrovert, the queen of PR, the urbane mind is often caught up in a frenzy. My mind, for one, however disciplined and bland, has learned to adjust to the rigorous schedule of running while listening to podcasts, cooking while listening to podcasts, biking while listening to podcasts, riding the train while reading kindle, working while listening to music, reading and writing, socializing. The intensity of multitasking and the to do list, in the end, beckons just this -- watching the sun slide away like the imperfect sunny side up you attempted at 3:00PM.
Maybe this is why in all the drama evoked from relationships in the past two years, I ended up with a man who I spent time being in comfortable silence with. We were probably the strangest of buddies. Me in my nook and him on the couch, not talking except for the passing of tea. That was it for four months. We'd read and work in the living room kitchen and end the night with dinner downstairs. Moments that were completely mundane and extraordinary in their lack of content. I hope, in the passage of time, that despite how we learn and grow, we will always have those moments of the golden hour.