The Bachelor

Shawn and the girls are away this week in North Carolina and I am here at the house in Florida playing the bachelor. It is quiet without them. The normal activities of my day are dictated by sound, and so it is odd to notice parts of my routine -- softly closing doors, creeping into bed, laughing with restraint -- which remain even when there is no need to be quiet.

In short, I don't have to worry about not waking the baby. I don't have to worry about the creaking hardwood floors or my cracking joints. I have only myself for which to be responsible, and I take this opportunity to be somewhat irresponsible.

Of the sounds around me, I hear myself most: with all of the music of my daily life stripped away, all I have left is to think. I enjoy, and do not enjoy, the time to think.

There is more lack in the house than life, so to fill up the absence of the girls, I find ways to make noise -- I turn up the radio, I shut the doors with abandon, and I create noise where it is normally organic; I manufacture the sounds of a full house and I drown out the silence of an empty home.