Can I Share Solitude? April 28, 2020
I read a recent Facebook post by a psychologist listing 25 ways to take care of your mental health during quarantine. One of them was to set aside some time each to day as a "retreat--30 minutes, she suggested, of meaningful solitude.
On Sunday, I decided to take her up on her offer. If a psychologist was giving me permission to take 30 minutes to not grade, not homeschool, not Zoom, not discipline, not cook, not clean, not exercise, then I was going to take it.
Even though it was 5:00 pm, which is usually when I start cooking dinner, I slipped happily into my king-sized bed with my newest book. I had been reading for exactly three minutes when Sam came in.
"Can I read in here, too?' he asked, Judy Blume book in hand. He was already climbing up on the bed, so I said, "Sure."
The soft sounds of Sam reading--his slow breathing, leathery page turning, occasional giggles--are as meditative as a spa water feature to me, so we read, side by side, calm and happy.
While we didn't get a full 30 minutes (Henry decided to do a puzzle right between us, then Jason was wondering about dinner, then one of cats joined the party), those minutes of shared solitude renewed my ability to take on the rest of the day's tasks, and perhaps even to find joy in them.
Here's my original brainstorming from a few weeks / a lifetime ago:
Subpoint #1 / Pattern #1: Forced solitude and its negative effects
Subpoint #2 / Pattern #2: Chosen solitude and its positive effects
Loose thesis: When we are forced into solitude, the aloneness breeds darkness, but when we have the freedom to choose solitude, we strengthen our ability to forgive, to hope, and to connect.
While I still like the positive direction my second subpoint was going in, I'm not quite sure that's where I'm headed now. Instead, I'd like to explore the idea of "shared solitude": what it means, and why it's important, especially right now.
What is shared solitude?
I know it sounds like an oxymoron, right? How you can share solitude with another person when solitude means being alone? But hear me out: I'm not sure that solitude demands being physically alone. Even transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau, perhaps the American champion of solitude, said, this: "I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.” He speaks of solitude itself as a "companion," suggesting that perhaps solitude means not existing in a vacuum but existing in a place where we have made peace with the sounds and sights around us.
Being alone does not equal being peaceful, necessarily. I think of Cathy in Steinbeck's East of Eden, alone in her gray lean-to, fingering a tiny vial of Alice-in-Wonderland poison, waiting to shrink, and shrink, and shrink into nothingness. In her final moments, she laments her solitude, realizing that other humans "had something she lacked, and she didn't know what it was" (Steinbeck 553). Her solitary confinement--the state of being inherently different from other humans and unable to connect to anyone--almost evokes empathy here. Almost.
[Note: I think, too, of Jay Gatsby's last, lonely moments. He had spent too much time living among ghosts and just before he dies, realizes his solitude has kept him from seeing the world for what it is.]
But my mind travels to one of my favorite moments in East of Eden--it's not one of the heavy-hitting Samuel Hamilton moments, but instead a quiet one of shared solitude between Abra and Lee. Near the end of the novel, Abra watches Lee making tarts (I love the moments when Abra and Lee are in the kitchen together), and they have this conversation that makes me cry each time I read it:
He hovered over her. "You know, I haven't wished for many things in my life," he began. "I learned very early not to wish for things. Wishing just brought earned disappointment."
Abra said gaily, "But you wish for something now. What is it?"
He blurted out, "I wish you were my daughter--" he was shocked at himself. He went to the stove and turned out the gas under the teakettle, then lighted it again.
She said softly. "I wish you were my father."
He glanced quickly at her and away. "You do?"
"Yes, I do."
"Why?"
"Because I love you."
Remember this: Lee returned from his dream of owning a bookstore in San Francisco because he was lonely as hell. He gave up his lifelong goal in exchange for companionship in this quiet, somewhat dysfunctional Trask house.
This moment between Abra and Lee helps me define "shared solitude": The are side-by-side, at peace, sharing the joy of a moment. The presence of one character is part of the other's solitude, as together, they can press away the thick walls of jealousy, cynicism, war, death, and fear. They are together and but alone from the impending chaos of the war.
It's been a little while since I've read All the Light We Cannot See, but I see Marie-Laure and Werner's relationship in a similar way. They exist in separate narratives throughout most of the novel, but they're each feeling their way through a war-stricken world. Each one is so vulnerable and so alone. But the reader gets to join them; the chapters are so short that we, the readers, get to unite Marie-Laure and Werner by moving swiftly from one narrative to the next; we get to bridge their experiences so that they, too, may share their solitude.
CONCUSSION BREAK....to be continued...
On Sunday, I decided to take her up on her offer. If a psychologist was giving me permission to take 30 minutes to not grade, not homeschool, not Zoom, not discipline, not cook, not clean, not exercise, then I was going to take it.
Even though it was 5:00 pm, which is usually when I start cooking dinner, I slipped happily into my king-sized bed with my newest book. I had been reading for exactly three minutes when Sam came in.
"Can I read in here, too?' he asked, Judy Blume book in hand. He was already climbing up on the bed, so I said, "Sure."
The soft sounds of Sam reading--his slow breathing, leathery page turning, occasional giggles--are as meditative as a spa water feature to me, so we read, side by side, calm and happy.
While we didn't get a full 30 minutes (Henry decided to do a puzzle right between us, then Jason was wondering about dinner, then one of cats joined the party), those minutes of shared solitude renewed my ability to take on the rest of the day's tasks, and perhaps even to find joy in them.
Here's my original brainstorming from a few weeks / a lifetime ago:
Subpoint #1 / Pattern #1: Forced solitude and its negative effects
Subpoint #2 / Pattern #2: Chosen solitude and its positive effects
Loose thesis: When we are forced into solitude, the aloneness breeds darkness, but when we have the freedom to choose solitude, we strengthen our ability to forgive, to hope, and to connect.
While I still like the positive direction my second subpoint was going in, I'm not quite sure that's where I'm headed now. Instead, I'd like to explore the idea of "shared solitude": what it means, and why it's important, especially right now.
What is shared solitude?
I know it sounds like an oxymoron, right? How you can share solitude with another person when solitude means being alone? But hear me out: I'm not sure that solitude demands being physically alone. Even transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau, perhaps the American champion of solitude, said, this: "I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.” He speaks of solitude itself as a "companion," suggesting that perhaps solitude means not existing in a vacuum but existing in a place where we have made peace with the sounds and sights around us.
Being alone does not equal being peaceful, necessarily. I think of Cathy in Steinbeck's East of Eden, alone in her gray lean-to, fingering a tiny vial of Alice-in-Wonderland poison, waiting to shrink, and shrink, and shrink into nothingness. In her final moments, she laments her solitude, realizing that other humans "had something she lacked, and she didn't know what it was" (Steinbeck 553). Her solitary confinement--the state of being inherently different from other humans and unable to connect to anyone--almost evokes empathy here. Almost.
[Note: I think, too, of Jay Gatsby's last, lonely moments. He had spent too much time living among ghosts and just before he dies, realizes his solitude has kept him from seeing the world for what it is.]
But my mind travels to one of my favorite moments in East of Eden--it's not one of the heavy-hitting Samuel Hamilton moments, but instead a quiet one of shared solitude between Abra and Lee. Near the end of the novel, Abra watches Lee making tarts (I love the moments when Abra and Lee are in the kitchen together), and they have this conversation that makes me cry each time I read it:
He hovered over her. "You know, I haven't wished for many things in my life," he began. "I learned very early not to wish for things. Wishing just brought earned disappointment."
Abra said gaily, "But you wish for something now. What is it?"
He blurted out, "I wish you were my daughter--" he was shocked at himself. He went to the stove and turned out the gas under the teakettle, then lighted it again.
She said softly. "I wish you were my father."
He glanced quickly at her and away. "You do?"
"Yes, I do."
"Why?"
"Because I love you."
Remember this: Lee returned from his dream of owning a bookstore in San Francisco because he was lonely as hell. He gave up his lifelong goal in exchange for companionship in this quiet, somewhat dysfunctional Trask house.
This moment between Abra and Lee helps me define "shared solitude": The are side-by-side, at peace, sharing the joy of a moment. The presence of one character is part of the other's solitude, as together, they can press away the thick walls of jealousy, cynicism, war, death, and fear. They are together and but alone from the impending chaos of the war.
It's been a little while since I've read All the Light We Cannot See, but I see Marie-Laure and Werner's relationship in a similar way. They exist in separate narratives throughout most of the novel, but they're each feeling their way through a war-stricken world. Each one is so vulnerable and so alone. But the reader gets to join them; the chapters are so short that we, the readers, get to unite Marie-Laure and Werner by moving swiftly from one narrative to the next; we get to bridge their experiences so that they, too, may share their solitude.
CONCUSSION BREAK....to be continued...
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