First off, a nice piece from Garrison Keillor on Salon about his periodic need for solitude, in which he conjures up a New York café experience that does sound “heavenly”:

…to walk into a little cafe with an armload of newspapers and sit at the counter and read them over a bowl of chili and a grilled cheese and a white mug of coffee, and a waitress who says, “What else would you like, love?” — this is heaven…

The second item I found is an essay from The Guardian written by Rachel Denton, a woman who calls herself a hermit. In the article, Denton describes not only her daily life as a hermit, which is quite interesting, but also the experiences that led up to her decision to live a solitary life. In particular, I found it fascinating that she had once been determined to become a nun, but she found even convent life was too social for her taste.

The final link I’ve got is from the Web site of the Academy of American Poets, which features a collection of “Poems about Anonymity and Loneliness.” I take issue with the title of this sampling of poems, which they admit further on also includes poems about “solitary thought,” because I think “melancholy” is a better adjective than “loneliness.” And as I wrote about in an earlier post, melancholy can be a good thing. In any case, I like this gathering of poems, and I hope you do too.

As this approach fizzled, an idea that my husband Joe and I had previously talked about started bubbling up to the surface: a blog about introverts. It seemed to make sense; how many times over the years had we complained about being misunderstood by non-introverts? Too many to count. I knew I had a huge amount of personal experience to draw on, perhaps a slight chip on my shoulder, and a personal goal to live my life without fear of what others thought of me. But was it enough? Would anyone want to read a blog about introverts?

As I started to look into it, I found there aren’t really that many resources on the Web for introverts, and what there is tends to address more psychological or career-related topics. I didn’t find much written from the point of view of an average introvert, about what life really is like for us.

I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised; if the hallmark of an introvert is to be more inwardly-directed, it makes sense that we are not trumpeting that very quality throughout cyberspace. For that reason, a blog about introverts may seem like a strange idea to most people. But I think it’s time to start one. If this blog can make even a small difference in generating greater compassion and understanding between introverts, extroverts, and within ourselves, then I will have accomplished my goal. And if I can make people laugh in the process, that’s even better.