Inward and Outward

Sometimes I think writing is not pen to paper, but eyes opening or eyes closing. When eyes are opened, I see the world. I look at what is around me. I project and interact and am 'out' there, in daylight and looking at others' eyes. When eyes are closed, I am tuned in to myself only. I am 'in' here and looking only to myself for guidance. I stay within and turn from the daylight world to night, needing none other.

I work at home, and so nearly every day there are hours of eyes-closed time. Time I sit in the sunshiny silence of the kitchen, looking out the window to the backyard. Yesterday a black-capped chickadee alighted on the back porch, and several weeks ago I saw the first robin. It may be daylight, but without the sound of others' footsteps and only the comforting hum of the running dishwasher, it is like the dead of night with silence. Nobody walks by the window, nobody comes to the door.

Some writers write in early morning and I have done that only once or twice in my life, usually from arising so early it is dark.

I write at night. I need eyes-closed time, I need the comforting cloak of night about me. It is time to look not out but in. Black is one of my favorite colors. Some say it is the absence of color, but I believe it is every color. For doesn't night embrace everything in her darkness? The earth does not disappear when night comes, but instead is absorbed into her eyes-closed arms. She is a good friend to me, like a gentle hand upon my shoulder and a murmuring voice: "I have closed off the world so you can listen ... listen to yourself."

Inward or outward. Do I go in today, to listen to myself? Or do I go out, armed with books to place upon a shelf, a smile for a visitor to the Longfellow House, a hand to clasp another?

Spring is coming and the earth's eyes-closed months are ending. The time of Pisces will end soon and I will be renewed with a blast of Aries energy as the world erupts to riotous color and sun. From cool water to sunny fire I go, and so the days of eyes-open will begin.

But I will not keep my eyes open for long.