“Be alone today,” my inner advisor advises.

I’m home from two-plus wonderful weeks away, first in Toronto with a son and family, and then in Winnipeg with daughter and family, and then in Saskatoon with sisters, and the last two stops included launches of Like a River Divides the Earth at the McNally Robinson’s bookstores in those cities and an interview with Kelly Hughes. And none of it was onerous, but rather good — the times with children and grandchildren and friends and the launches and conversations and interviews. I’m deeply grateful for the love and support, especially for me and the book, and the many interactions with people and hearing, more than once, the sweetest words ever, which are “I love you Grandma.” But I came home tired.

Nowadays when I’m tired I usually blame my age. But when away, and doing things like book launches, there’s the additional “work” of being present, of presenting, of trying to keep my wits and attention about me.

So today, a day of not being present to anything or anyone. Alone.

It could be argued that writing a blog post is a public interaction, a projection of one’s presence toward others, and I would have to agree, but at the same time it feels different in that it’s reflection, a summation, a way of figuring out where I am in the moment, and what was, and what’s to come. For me, writing things down and sorting them is aloneness that helps.

Soon I’ll park myself in front of my coffee table where I have a panorama jigsaw puzzle underway, though only the frame done so far, and I’ll watch some of today’s FIFA soccer games, and later I’ll make a pie for tomorrow because my daughter-in-law’s family includes me in their annual Father’s Day Pie Contest and I’ll probably read (I’ve got Pick a Colour by Souvankham Thammavongsa on the go, and a book of the collected stories of William Trevor). Absorbing and gaining strength, undoing tiredness. Taking the advice of my inner advisor.