varying degrees of light

I don't know that he thinks about it often, but I bet that my dad would enjoy living alone every once in a while. It's six forty on Sunday evening, the first time manipulation of the year, though it is still quite dark outside. Mom and the girls are at evening service and he came back home from the office just a few minutes ago. I'm here after a big Saturday and yet another night of struggling to fall asleep. Dad is downstairs now. I can hear steady, careful chopping and stirring. The TV isn't on and there's no music. I think, I couldn't say for sure, that my parents' marriage is a relationship where they could sit quietly and inhabit the same space peacefully in silence. I can't say whether they do that or not, whether they have that luxury and even if that is the case, it's not the same as quietly and deliberately cooking alone when that's all you want to do. I love my family, and try to see them at least once a week but I would spend so much more time at my house if it were empty. Having a wife and two girls in the house is different from living with six guys and the catatonic friends and lovers that we involve ourselves with. Yes. Yes, the last time the house was empty, there was a party with roommates and friends and lovers, yes and it was very fun. And it would probably happen again, but AFTER that... well, and maybe I would appreciate a change of scenery and pace as well. Being anonymous in a city would be nice, but it is not plausible for a few months yet.