Today I am enjoying the silence. It’s a pretty noisy silence. The freezer compressor is going. The busy street outside remains busy. There’s the occasional bird cry. I expect at some point I’ll hear very loud music. My upstairs neighbors will move and all three of them are heavy walkers, so there will be the dully thudding of footsteps at some point. A truck just gently honked.

But, with the exception of pre-recorded message on the bus announcing it’s route, I’m not hearing voices. Which, despite my extroversion, is delightful.

It’s a funny thing, to be an extrovert who is mostly surrounded by introverts. I’m generally the person to invite people over, I’m expected to be the one who makes sure conversation happens (which isn’t the same as driving the conversation, and I’m expected to know that distinction too). And I’ll almost always agree to visiting. I’ll almost always host some sort of impromptu gathering. I have one friend who by now knows that if I see she’s posted to twitter a pondering of whether to go out or stay in, she WILL be invited over for dinner and game night.

Unless I see it today. (Sorry, friend!)

I spent almost all day Friday with my friend Nancy. It was a blast. Saturday I hosted a small brunch for a couple of friends at my place, then when they left, a friend came for dinner and ended up spending the night & so having breakfast. Fifteen minutes after she left, another couple friends showed up to make tamales. They left four or five Wes Anderson movies later.

Friday, as I was heading home from visiting with Nancy, I declared on twitter that I wasn’t leaving my house until Tuesday. You can see from the above, this didn’t mean that I stopped seeing people.

Last week showed me the extreme of my extroversion. Out with a friend visiting another friend at work on Wednesday. At a smashing educational event at the Field Museum Thursday. Out on a day off discussing and celebrating (but not attending) the Cubs’ home opener Friday. Then non-stop visitors until about 11pm Sunday.

And I enjoy the hell out of it. I won’t deny it.

But, wow. Sometimes I forget how nice it is to be alone. To make space to write. To make space to read.

Turns out? Right now, I wish I were deep in rural New Mexico. Alone. No freezer compressors. No busy streets. Some bird calls. No upstairs neighbors! No buses announcing their route!

But, for now, for today, the recharge will come even with compressors, buses, thudding neighbors, honking, and birds. And I will call it silence.