Together in Solitude
Finished “The Art of the Wasted Day” by Patricia Hampl recently. I actually, positively teared when I read this:
“A writer even needs to pine for solitude, court it, steal it away from the rest of so-called real life. It’s very lover-like, this romance with solitude. It may be the prerequisite that sustains a writing life, more important than talent or discipline, this passion for solitude, the ground upon which the life of the mind roots and blossoms. Solitude is the beguiling illicit love luring us away from the proper marriage of domestic demands and delights or the civic responsibilities of citizenship.
In a moment of great tenderness I once confessed — I wonder if you remembered this — that I loved living with you. It’s like being alone, I said happily. You cocked your beautiful brow and said mildly, I gather that’s a compliment?
Being alone with another — it’s the greatest love transaction. Being alone is, we know, the best chance you have to be yourself, which is in turn the seed of integrity and of any possible originality.
I fell hard and early for Rilke’s line from his 1904 Letters to a Young Poet, the standard poetic operating manual for me in my twenties. Rilke describes the ideal relationship as a love that consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other.”
More so today than ever, I love my solitude. I cherish it and protect it as fiercely as billionaries protect their fortune. It is only in recent years that I’ve learned that my time, attention and the real estate in my heart is valuable. Generosity is not synonymous with letting people take their fill of you. I am lightyears away from being the social butterfly I once was; my brain cannot compute how that was even me.
This past year has taught me the beautiful difference between loneliness and solitude. I am acutely aware of how wholesome, good company (as Patricia Hampl says “It’s like being alone”) is rejuvenating for me, and being in the company of some others, even if for a short time, can feel draining.
Yay to lessons learnt, stirring books and good company. ❤
