Even a week after my artistic retreat, I didn’t feel the need or want to speak as much. I felt quiet. It was a good feeling. And retreat is certainly the word- I backed away from people. Didn’t talk. No need to explain anything. I didn’t need other people to feel good, justified in my existence or identity.
I must admit I had been afraid of being on my own for so long though (it was only 3 full days, but still…). I had had a residency in a small town 18 months previously and had been caught out, unawares, by the feeling of being adrift. I’d turned to wine and TV, to feel less uncomfortable being alone. But I now see that that was partly because I was surrounded by other people and had to interact with others on a regular basis- basically I wasn’t doing this solitude thing right.
This time around I was ready. Ready for the uncomfortable feeling to come and go and armed with writings and listenings about solitude to counter the pervading attitude in our society that being alone, or even wanting to be alone, is deeply weird. I now also knew that the discomfort is all part of it, and that it would pass.
This time around I was expecting the adrift-ness, and had also started to realise that it is the drifting without an identity anchor that is actually the point. That is the scary thing, and the growth thing (so often the way…).
Being alone is certainly a luxury few can afford, but it is also a cutting adrift that few can stomach.
My reading around the subject helped me realise that not only is being alone OK, it’s also beneficial, and that many, many people have done it before (Jesus, Buddha…), even though it is not something that’s encouraged in our society. The poet and philosopher David Whyte describes the uncomfortable feeling of being alone at first, as a shedding of the identity that we have constructed by ‘bouncing’ off other people around us. Once this mirroring is no longer there, we can turn more fully inward. The artist Lee Krasner said: ‘I need to be alone for certain periods of time or I violate my own rhythm’.
I know I’m incredibly lucky to have been given this time of solitude, but perhaps I also put myself in the way of it- I had the ‘practice’ during my residency, I prepared myself with readings, I knew I needed to say ‘yes’ when the opportunity was offered (I didn’t hesitate), and I have a meditation practice so I know what it is to just ‘be’, albeit for fleeting moments.
Looking back over my writing notes from January I find the following:
Sitting in my chair, bundled against the darkness, I look back over my shoulder, back at the year gone.
It is a blur mostly. A few candle flickers, moments that went straight to the heart, no words or thoughts.
A yellow moon, a gentle breath of air whooshed up from the valley, the caress of a branch riding on the breeze, the soft, bright Eastern light catching broken glass and the blue sky beyond, the obliterating white noise of a downpour as I shelter and surrender.
I am alone for all these moments. Perhaps because there is no missing the heart when you’re alone- straight and sudden as an arrow, bright as a candle.