When I’m in my house alone and stop to note it, a feeling of satisfaction goes through me. In the silence, I sense the space. The space I’m in and the rooms I know lay just beyond, or up the stairs. I sense all the life and noise that has filled it before and will fill it again. Just not at that moment. In a moment alone and in silence, it is just me. I revel in the mystery that somehow I own a house, filled with memories and tokens of my life. A life first on my own, and now with my husband.
I used to imagine myself as a grown up living in an apartment in a busy city. Down to the exposed brick walls and large windows that would look out at a river with the city skyline not too far off. My bed would be in a walk up loft that was over the kitchen area. Usually I was alone in this scenario, and perfectly happy about it. My current home could be no further from that dream. It’s a two story, single family home in a small neighborhood in a small city in Western Mass. The front windows do have a small view of the looming peak of Mt Greylock as well as the sun as it sets behind it. But I’m only ever temporarily alone here.
This wasn’t the house I dreamed of when I was a little girl, or younger and single. Yet it feels more like home and brings me a joy I hadn’t imagined. To have a space, a space of my own, that I share with someone I love. My comfort in the silence comes in part because I know wherever he is, my husband will return. I didn’t need this comfort when I was single. I enjoyed the silences of places I lived for different reasons then. Now that I do have him, and know this home and its silence, I can’t go back, wouldn’t. His presence allows me to enjoy his absence. His absence enriches the silence of our home.
In a sense, I will never be alone until death does us part. Even when I venture solo to a different country or on a cross country adventure with a friend, he’s with me. He’s changed my dna; when I’m alone and quiet, he’s there, too
Erikka Adams is a nonfiction writer originally from NH. She and her husband have lived in the Berkshires for three years. Erikka writes essays and potentially, a book-length work of nonfiction. Erikka is an avid letter writer and will support the USPS until the day she dies.