“Solitude is the soul’s holiday, an opportunity to stop doing for others and to surprise and delight ourselves instead.”
It's been a bit of a crazy year.
We took a month-long trip across America, came home to Uganda, caught our breath, and have had visitors for 3 months straight (awesome visitors, for the record). In the middle of it all, we've had 2 youth leadership conferences - one in Goma, DR Congo and one in Entebbe, Uganda, not to mention I've tried to keep up with my regular work.
I'm poor at disciplining myself to make time for solitude amongst the crazy. It's something I am improving at, pole pole (slowly slowly), but when I wake up in the morning with a to-do list in my head, it's hard for me to sit down, push that list to the side, and just be in silent solitude. But when I don't, I find myself more short-tempered, more easily stressed, and less productive.
So I set aside a whole weekend just for myself to rest, reflect, recover, and come back to myself and my creativity. Last Friday, I headed down to a Lake Mburo, a small national park with lots of nature to take in - a great place to escape from the chaos of Kampala. And I just stopped to take time with myself.
What I took on my Weekend of Solitude:
My camera (duh)
A sketch book and pencils
A yoga mat
2 good books
My journal
Incense and meditation music
A knitting project
Oil pastels and paper
The most comfortable clothes in my closet
“The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind.”