On the first night, the home felt deathly quiet. I'm prone to complaining about the rising chorus of noise around bath and bedtime, but I never imagined our place could be this silent. It's not uncommon to hear parents talk about taking a break from their kids; maybe a night off, or even a weekend away.
Typically, they want a change from the day-to-day stress of parenting, or simply, the chance to feel like adults again.
I recently had the chance to test this out with a stay-at-home break from my family. I've travelled on my own before, but this was something different. My child was going to a week-long school camp and my wife would be overseas on business. Like an adult version of the famous movie, I was going to be home alone. At this point, cultural clichés would dictate that as a guy with the house to myself for the whole week, I would regress into some pre-marriage state, indulging in "frat-like" behaviour and filling the house with half-naked dancers and beer-chugging companions. But those passions were the last thing on my mind.
Given a week alone, with no distractions and a quiet house, the one thing I wanted to do was work. Was I crazy? When I look at the years since my daughter was born, the one thing I have been chasing, again and again is more time. It's a specific and focused kind of time I've seldom enjoyed since the joys of diapers, play dates and homework came into my life. By the second night, I was into a rhythm where the hours simply came and went and the pieces of the song didn't just fall into place, they seemed to float there as if on some pre-assigned creative flight path. I was totally free of the normal concerns which enter my mind every few hours of a normal day - how long till the school bus comes home, what will we have for dinner - I was free to simply create; nothing more, nothing less.
There's a kind of time that doesn't care if an idea strikes you after dinner because you can work it though till dawn, since you don't have to worry if it's your turn to feed the baby or your morning to put the child on the school bus. This is the kind of time that doesn't care about working right through the afternoon because there's no play date to supervise or after-school activity to shuttle off to. Like many parents, I miss this totally self-absorbed and unapologetically creative, selfish and productive kind of time. I often crave it like a rare jewel, or a cool drink on a hot day. Not that my days are unproductive or totally distracted. As my child has got older, I've become less and less of a "stay at home dad". Once my daughter is safely on the school bus, I have a big chunk of time to get down to work until the afternoon bus brings her home. But my afternoons are always cut short, every day, right in the middle. No matter how much of a flow or rhythm I might be in come mid-afternoon, the day is broken in half. There's afternoon tea to prepare and routines to follow. There is the daily joy (and it is a joy) of talking about the school day, supervising homework and gently (or not so gently) reminding my child of chores. But it comes at a cost. I have a vague memory of mid-afternoons, being my most productive time of the day, or at least the times when I could get through a mountain of work and gain that sense of productive achievement that the normally employed take for granted.
By the fourth morning, I realised I was sleeping better. My daily pattern had shifted, going to bed later, rising later, but not needing an alarm. Even the space between meals was different to my normal routine. And, even though I was working crazy long hours, I still had time to do a little exercise and enjoy some quiet reading at night.