Solitutude

A friend emailed me this quote today and it has rocked by world today:
  "Solitude is the furnace of transformation" Henri Nouwen
The reason it rocked me is not because my solitude has been bringing me through the furnace lately. I have had a month of travel, work and busy-ness. All good, but I haven't had a day off here that didn't involve sleeping for half of it because I had worked the night before without company since the end of February. I have forgotten in many ways what my life of a lot of solitude here looks and feels like. I was feeling those growing pains last night and today.
I went for a hike today, a fairly intense longer hike and about a mile in I still couldn't settle in. I realized my mind is used to being entertained a lot. I haven't been great here about reading post work-generally I watch Netflix (thanks to people who have gotten me hooked on shows like The Killing and Parenthood :). So in all my busy times I haven't had a lot of true silence. I realized I was uncomfortable with the silence, with being alone with my thoughts for the hours of hiking to come. I realized I didn't want to listen to my heart. Yikes. It was a good day of remembering the value of that.
Thankful for the quote and the (beautiful, yet challenging) hike to remind me of the value of solitude. And I do believe that his quote is true...true solitude forces you into uncomfortable places. This season has taught me that.
My hike...I'll post those pictures later :)