Shhhhh!

As I have said before on this blog, I like quiet and stillness.  I love the quiet of the morning before anyone gets out of bed.  I love the quiet of the ocean when there is nothing around you but water.  I love gardens and libraries, but more importantly, I need quiet to concentrate.  I am very easily distracted, like Dug in the movie Up, any small sound or a movement takes my focus right out of my thoughts and into the goings-on of the world around me.  I need quiet to write.

This is a problem because I live in a commune.  Ok, it isn’t really a commune, but more often than not, my house is very like a commune.  Its constantly filled with various and sundry relatives.  Some stay for a few days, some stay for a few months, some stay longer.  I like them all.  It seems to me that constantly being surrounded by loved ones is good problem to have, but I still can’t get any work done at home.  The TV is always on, someone is doing P90X in the living room, or everyone is in the kitchen cooking breakfast, second breakfast, elevensies, luncheon,  dinner, or supper.  We won’t even talk about the bathroom situation.

As a result of my family’s communal style of living, I have been on a quest to find a comfortable place to write during the day.  The first logical place to try was Starbucks.  It’s kind of a tradition for writers to write in coffee shops.  If it’s good enough for John Green, it’s good enough for me.  Not really.  I had never noticed how much people talk in coffee shops.  That seems elementary, but I had never thought about it because I had never tried to concentrate on anything more complex than a vanilla scone and a cappuccino inside of a coffee shop.

As I said, I like libraries, so my next stop was the county library.  It seemed like a brilliant idea until I walked in the door and realized it’s summer.  The lobby of the library looked like a Gymboree class.   That ended quickly.

Next I decided to try the local community college library, which is where I am writing now.  In a funny way, I think the universe is trying to help me write this blog post.  When I got here, it was quiet.  I sat down in a study room, got my laptop set up and my phone plugged in, then someone turned on a jackhammer outside my window.  Construction.  I moved to a quieter place, sat down, set up my laptop, and someone set off the fire alarm.  A few minutes ago someone decided to have a party outside of my current window.

Don’t they say, “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em”?  I guess I will, as soon as I finish writing this post.