The Largest Aloneness

John Steinbeck on his mornings in Somerset, England...

"At about six in the morning a bird calls me awake. I don't even know what kind of bird but his voice rises and falls with the insistence of a bugle in the morning so that I want to answer, "I hear and I obey!" Then I get up, shake down the coal in the stove, make coffee and for an hour look out at the meadows and the trees. I hear and smell and see and feel the earth and I think - nothing. This is the most wonderful time. Elaine sleeps later and I am alone - the largest aloneness I have ever known, mystic and wonderful."