Solitude

Neil posted about --and I admit I did not read in entirety--the subject of women who feel like they are somehow incomplete without a mate of sorts.

I could rant like a madwoman about this.

I didn't marry till I was 31. I dated for very nearly 15 years. I had a very active dating life. I dated every variety of male, with a huge and awesome ethnic diversity cross-section...from Peruvians to Indians to Chinese and a bevy of Jewish men... and on from there.

The most important thing I learned was how to be single. Being single is for many people a very abnormal way to live, for others its just life. For the latter group, good for you.

The hours. When a person is single, there is much more time in life to fill. When I would come home from work, I had this block of time from 5 or so on to about 11 that just was there every night. Sometimes calling a friend everynight would generally seem almost desparate, sometimes one doesnt want to call someone. Going places like movie theaters alone can be troublesome...weekend nights--perhaps I should have had a million friends to occupy those nights, but I moved every six months for nearly 5 years so most of my friends were a long ways away, living their own single lives. I learned to fill the hours.

Folks the one thing each person is is ALONE. I mention this to Suley and he comments on how dark this whole notion seems. But the truth is that we are each of us a Spanish Galleon of solitude. And possibly the best thing we can do for ourselves is to just accept that.

I see people who try to cling desperately to things to avoid that acknowledgement of solitude. The most popular thing to cling to is the opposite sex. After all, if sex wasn't so pleasurable than half the internet wouldn't cater to the service of it.

But sex, ironically, never alleviates solitude. It seems to me that it does distract a person from feeling solitude though. Marraige dampens the sense of solitude considerably. But to my mind, it's important to remember that solitude.

Those who actually read my posts, know that I am a follower of the teachings of Christ. But in the times that my solitude has been most acute, having a Lord in heaven somewhere rarely helped me, so feeble is my faith.

It's not just women who find their worth in the opposite (or maybe the same) sex. Everyone does this. But I guess I just have that little confidence in humanity, no person, no matter how substantial that person was, could ever convince me that they were somehow less mortal, less fallible, less frail, less vulnerable and most of all, less solitary that I was. We would just be two very delicate ceramic jars next to each other, rather than alone. And that never alleviated solitude.

I never found anything till Adeline (a child I very much wanted, now have and who will some day leave me to have her own life) and the responsibility to my husband. By responsibility, I mean I can't just pick up and go to Guatemala when there is a sweet deal to get me down there and back for cheap because I have to consider both of us.

But while I was single, I did manage to learn to cope with my solitude. And in my times of struggle, I learned how to cope with problems without reliance on another. And would you believe that all it boiled down to was the distraction of activity.

I was talking to Jeff last night about the zen of cooking, tongue in cheek, but it actually made a little sense to me. In order to know what a tomato is going to do in the frying pan, you have to understand the tomato. In order to really know how to cook, one has to understand their cheese, their noodles, their oils and spices and also understand the methods of cooking or otherwise altering these foods...and how they might taste together...Am I getting too far out here?

My point is that there is a quality to activities like cooking or photography or dancing or ceramics (and many others no doubt) that allow one to really become incredibly involved in the process of trying to do them well. Somehow in the process of throwing a pot, framing an image, writing something, learning a new step, and a gamut of other things, I was able to get away from that solitude.

In these pursuits I learned how to be happy without another body occupying my life. These things, whether I did them well or not, allowed me to improve. These things stretched my mind to understand things like how bodies communicate with movement, how dough works, depth in images or contrasts of shapes or colors, or even capturing solitude in an image. I didn't care really anymore if there was a person there to tell me what they thought, because I figured out what I liked. To the extent that another person just didn't seem like an imperative to have in my life. I was ok with learning how to paint, thinking about walking a marathon, make candles or learn to draw...

And there were enough friends so that I was not in solitary confinement. But by the time I married, I was ok with that solitude. I started to wonder if I really even wanted to share the bed and blankets.

Folks who derive a sense of self worth from a close relationship with another are kind of missing out on themselves. Single-ness/solitude is a very selfish time. No one to tell you where to eat, what to play on the stereo or to clean the bathroom. But it's good to have that, it makes there be more YOU to fall in love with.

This post is dedcated to my friend J. S., who I hope will at some point kinda come to where solitude is an acceptable thing in life, not a deficit of something.