“I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.” ~ Henry David Thoreau
Alone in the bedroom, on a day when the sky is blanketed and buffeted by a cover of clouds, I stand before a window illuminated by the sort of bright gray that could denote the first light of the morning, or the last light of the day. In this case it is the latter, and I wonder if loneliness is more pronounced first thing in the morning or in the early reaches of night. Each holds its ghostly splendor, each holds its haunted dreams.
“The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.” ~ Michel de Montaigne
Somewhere along the line society got it in its warped head that solitude was bad. We have since, particularly in the last decade or so, made it so that we are never alone. Within our hands is a device that can connect us to millions of other people with a tap and a swipe. We have the capability of reaching out to the rest of the world, and they in turn have a way of reaching us. Even when we’re alone, we’re never really alone – there’s always somewhere nearby to plug in, to reconnect, to dip into the relentless flow of information. Yet all of it is mere distraction. It seems we’ve spent our technological advances just to feel less alone, and less lonely, but it hasn’t really worked out that way. In the way of the most sinister fables and legends, we’ve only ended up growing further apart. And so I return to solitude, in an attempt to find out how to be alone again.
“If you’re lonely when you’re alone, you’re in bad company.” ~ Jean-Paul Sartre
There is peace here. And a sense of quiet that doesn’t happen all that often these days. I’m told it’s especially elusive when one has children. I’m thankfully unburdened by such a lifestyle damper, but even I have difficulty locating the silence in this world. There’s always a neighbor, an alarm, a machine, a phone, a message, an alert – and the notion of an extended period of unadulterated quiet is a rare luxury indeed. Still, if you work at it, you can find such places. Sometimes you have to work very hard, and occasionally you have to force the issue and create the atmosphere through planning and preparation. Then, you might have a chance of slipping into the silence…
The noise of the softest coat against cool, naked skin.
The clamor of a feather drifting down from a bed pillow.
The screaming of a candle flame shifting in the air.
“Solitude is fine but you need someone to tell that solitude is fine.” ~ Honore de Balzac
