How many?

Ah, the delights of living alone.

After two months of steady visitors, this week has been quiet; especially the house at night when the only sound track playing is the soft, repetitive murmuring of Roaring Beach.

Like a bear retreating to his den, I have sought out the house’s inner sanctum for time alone. No guests or resident artist means no hosting responsibilities, no extra dishes to wash, no extra food to cook, no children to put to bed, no engaging conversation, no nothing.

“No life!”, some friends would say. But the stillness of silence suits me in a way few people living the urban life or being in relationship could ever understand. For the past five evenings I have dwelled in the company of just myself and found it very satisfying and very nourishing. Unlike the bear, I have not slumbered when sitting by the fire; rather, my mind and senses are alert and sharp. I look around the room and focus upon object after object. The clarity within me is as crisp as the night air outside. The whole place is alive.

And, if I choose to do so, I am not without a pleasurable activity or two.

The Scrabble board comes out, places are set, score card is at the ready and letters are drawn. I (Pete) play against myself (Repete).

House rules:

“Floating” blanks are allowed (they can be replaced with the actual letter and reused).

Dictionaries are permitted to be used at any time (what better way to learn new words).

Combined higher scores are preferred over defensive lower scores.

Whenever three of the same letters are drawn, one can automatically be redrawn without losing a turn.

Cookies, chocolate and tea must be available to all.

Last night, however, instead of playing “against myself”, I thought it would be interesting to see how high a score “my partner” and I could achieve, thereby necessitating playing “with myself”.

No cheating was permitted, but each of us helped the other by opening up the triple word score, positioning words for the other person to take advantage of and, most importantly, agreeing (between us) to keep throwing in letters until we got the ones we needed (this meant losing a lot of turns, but since both of us were doing it, the advantage seesawed back and forth).

It was fierce and it took a lot of strategy on both our parts, but by putting our heads together we got to the final tally of 1153 points.

Six times all the letters were used (worth 300 points in itself). Each of us had one score each of 212 points (“watching” and “requital”). Thanks to the free use of the dictionary, the two most interesting words were “jugum” (a pair of the opposite leaflets of a pinnate leaf) and “poxing” (infecting with syphilis).

Officially, Repete won with 600 points with Pete coming in second with 553, but who’s counting winners or losers?

I went to bed exhausted from all the excitement.