All Alone Am I

I never liked being alone.  Even as a little kid I didn’t enjoy my own company.  My dad worked in Manhattan at a 9 to 5 job and my mom worked at our local hospital from midnight til 8 in the morning,  So when I came home from school I was alone from 3 til 5 cause Dad hadn’t come home yet and mom was sleeping til dinner time. I would do  my homework and then run out and join the other kids playing in the street.  I was never very good at entertaining myself.  That may be one of the few traits of mine that has followed me everywhere up to the present.  A lot of it has to do with low self esteem I am sure.

For most of my adult life I have been partnered, but with the onset of Covid and some other unfortunate circumstances, I have been cast out to fend for myself.  Actually it wasn’t that dramatic!  However, for the first time in my life I bought a house by myself and moved back to the community where my kids grew up and where I had close friendships and connections.  Sometimes circumstances just dictate what you have to do.  I thought I could handle this all on my own.  And,,,,I proved to myself that I could handle it but there was no guarantee that I was going to enjoy it.  Old ghosts rather quickly came to haunt me.  Before, I always had someone to encourage me and calm me down when circumstances required it.  At 70 years of age the old body began to break down and I had no one to tell me things would be all right or we will go through it together.  Not only did I have to go through things alone, I had to deal with an over active imagination about what the pain in my lower stomach meant.  The glass was definitely half empty at those times. I am not very good at soothing myself or developing alternative possibilities to what could be causing the pain!  That is just one area I have trouble dealing with alone!  I’d be remiss if I didn’t add making major decisions alone about life or the house. NO one to run it by…..to clarify……to annoy…or all of the above.. all necessary when making major decisions.

Another area I have trouble with is doing things for enjoyment.  Most of the things I did for fun always included another person.  Sheer beauty or happiness or even sorrow is so much better when you can share it with someone you care about.  A beautiful sunset is a work of art but watching it alone makes it seem empty and ten minutes later I have to ask myself if it really happened.  I love to laugh but find it uncomfortable to laugh alone.  It just isn’t as funny.  This past Friday, Wally and I went back to our old college haunts and met with 4 fraternity brothers (a gaggle of old farts)to plan an upcoming reunion at the college.  In the course of the conversation, we started laughing and griping about all sorts of things and we cackled for a good hour straight.  Not just that polite chuckle, but guffaws from the belly, the kind of uncontrollable laugh that comes from the pit of the stomach and is probably much better blood pressure medication than anything you can get at the pharmacy.  I continued laughing all the way home in the car and later that night when something would pop back into my mind.  One of the guys in the group said, as we were saying good bye in the bar/restaurant, “If you need proof of true affection, we just experienced it!”  He was right on the money!  But for me that kind of thing can only happen in the company of others.

So now at 77, I live alone!  I don’t know what to do with myself cause I don’t enjoy doing things alone.  I love my little house and I tend to the gardens as best I can, and have the place decorated with all the art work and antiques I have collected over the years.  I am proud of it, but it still feels like something is missing- another person. Someone to cuddle on the couch with, to snuggle by the fire with, to stand holding each other watching an incredible thunder storm sweep through the area, and squeezing each other tight as a loud surprise burst of thunder strikes and scares us.  But, that isn’t to be….. at least for now.

OK, OK, I know I have to quit whining.  So what am I going to do  about it?  A  thought came to me to try and think about times when I actually enjoy being and doing things alone.  So the list isn’t too long right now…..This isn’t a complete list but it is what I can identify as things I truly don’t need other people to enjoy, in fact they would probably interfere with my enjoyment of them.  The first thing that came to mind is my jeep.  I LOVE my jeep and I love driving it.  I have used it to move three times, to load antiques to take to my shop when I owned it.  Just to rub things in, as I am typing this old Mother Nature is beating my street with a beauty of a thunderstorm.  All I can think about is standing in front of my huge window in the arms of another and watching the lightning and counting the seconds til the thunder claps to figure out how far away the lightning struck….but I digress!  I like to drive somewhere I have never been before, crank up the radio, sing at the top of my lungs, and enjoy the scenery as it passes by.  I can speed up or slow down to study something that interests me.  I especially enjoy doing that at night cause I like to take sneak peeks into people’s homes and imagine what the family is like that lives there.  My imagination takes over and the story develops- what does dad do for a living?  Mom’s sister lives with the family and she watches the kids most of the time and so it goes.  I can’t do that when other people are in the car with me!  I also like mowing the lawn.  Something is soothing seeing the rows of mowed grass develop a pattern on the lawn.  It is immediate satisfaction     and when complete I feel accomplished, an achievement that adds to the coziness of my house.  The same thing is true of tidying up the garden, making sure the flowers are plush and the beds are weed free.  Digging in the dirt kind of reminds me of being a kid and daring the girl next door to eat dirt!  I like sitting at my dad’s desk and writing out bills, filing them away, straightening up the cubbies and the drawers and making sure that when I pull the drop down desk back up that it is as neat and organized as it was when I started.  The other thing I enjoy by myself is meandering through the aisles of a big antique shop where I can take as much time as I want looking through things.  I love searching through piles of stuff for that one piece I have to have. I can spend hours doing that. The trouble is, how do I incorporate these things into my life so that I can actually begin to enjoy myself alone for most of the time.  Of course, the worst time is around 10 pm when the street becomes quiet and the effect of being alone really sets in.  Maybe someday I will discover the secret.  I am tired like Brenda Lee was of being  alone with just the beat of my heart!

Better Alone?

Better Alone?

I look at George and see a person who is energized by social interaction. When we talk, it’s pretty apparent that he reaches out to engage in many interactions with friends, former students, and past colleagues. George is outgoing and comfortable – except apparently, when he is by himself. I certainly wish that the intimacy and easy connection he seeks becomes a reality. 

When George posed the topic of ‘Activities I like to do solo’, I would have guessed wrong as to his top items: driving in his jeep, doing bills, weeding the garden, searching for antiques. Antiques aside, I might have expected writing, drawing, and model railroading to be on the list. And certainly, after 50 years, I know George well enough to tease him about driving around at night peering into people’s homes. In fact, I have already reported him to the local constabulary (“yeah, he’s a jeep guy singing in his car looking in folks’ windows – can’t miss him; has rubber duckies on the dashboard”). At least that may result in new relationships with uniformed individuals. After all, what are friends for, George?

Okay, so now it’s my turn to ‘fess up: I sort of like to be alone – at least for portions of the day. When I’m alone, I can obtain focus free from distraction. Perhaps there are two broad categories of things I can do better by myself: tasks that I “ought” to do and tasks that I’m “called” to do. There’s a big difference between the two.

Usually, I put off obligatory demands… But when alone, there seem to be less excuse for ignoring all those projects which lay half done or unstarted. These items may vary, but currently range from fitting baseboard in an extra room, reseating the tail light cover on the truck, or maintenance of the brick walk at the museum. Obligations where I’m lacking skills, but also have no desire to improve those skills. 

Unfortunately, I’m haunted by unfinished business. Solo, I will at least mentally break the activity down into manageable pieces and force myself to take baby-steps to complete elements of the work. I’d be safe in guessing that we all have these lurking “to-dos”, where any distraction is a ready-made avoidance reason. But when I’m by myself, these to-dos seem to stand tall and stare at me.

The second broad area of solo tasks is actually not so broad at all, because it’s really about achieving focus. Hen and I have had some discussion about “flow”, that state where all activity seems to effortlessly stream from the unconscious, or barely self-analytic, aspect of our make-up. It’s when you’re ‘in the flow’ and totally riveted in doing what is at hand.

You know how this goes: you follow your curiosity to a new place, find the joy of discovery, as well as the desire to try something new — something new just beyond your reach – but achievable! It takes all your concentration, like riding a bike for the first time. There’s no time to think: just do. 

For me, it can be conceptual: reading a book that opens a door to another worldview, leading to more research. Or it can be hands-on, like trying a technique that improves your ability to achieve a goal. It is purpose-driven. I find this often while attempting to make something from a slab of wood. It is addictive, but – at least for me – easier to achieve while by myself.

I think George was on this path when he mentioned his pleasure in driving alone – following his curiosity, trying a new route; finding the joy of discovery. George related an experience where he came upon some historic stone houses nestled in the middle of undeveloped land on a back country road… and wondering about the origin stories of these dwellings, while trying not to lose his way. Sounds like fun!

Perhaps some things are better when you explore your own time and space.  So, drink in the light! (No, Geo, that’s not “drink in the night”: read it again).

Here’s a poem by Lizella Prescott:

Singularity
She is alone.A loner.On her own.A single singularitydrinking in the light.

Alone and Together

While I would describe myself as a social person, I often enjoy being alone.  Not by choice, I spent many childhood hours alone or with my dog.  Due to a variety of reasons, I wasn’t well liked by the general population of neighborhood children and as a result, spent lots of time in the nearby woods exploring nature with my shepherd collie.  Likely because I never knew what it was like to be part of a larger group of friends, playing alone in the natural environment was what I knew.  You can’t miss what you never had so this was enough for me. In high school, I became part of a small group of accepting friends and enjoyed the benefits of socializing as well as having alone time.  Fast forward to the present and I find myself in a similar state.  I have a wonderful partner and a small circle of friends but also find myself spending weeks or longer by my(human)self but in the company of my four footed companion, Duke.  And, about 90% of the time, it works very well.

To mitigate the downside of his loneliness, George closes “All Alone am I” by identifying the things he does that are enjoyable because of his single status.  He reminds me of the things I prefer to do alone as well as the joy I get from certain activities with or without my partner.  For example, I love taking care of the outside of my property.  Cutting the lawn, making and maintaining hiking and off road trails, vegetable and flower gardening, and wood cutting are deeply satisfying physical chores.  I get to exercise my muscles, spend time thinking while doing repetitive tasks, and often get into the flow that Wal describes in his rejoinder.  When alone, I also feel good about what I am still able to accomplish, by myself, with my own two hands.  But when I’m doing some of these with Teresa (I say some because we haven’t yet tried riding the lawn tractor together – after all, we’re still new to the neighborhood!) I not only appreciate the help but feel the closeness of shared and often playful time spent together.  This dual enjoyment – working alone or with another (sometimes with my grandchildren) also includes creating the morning on the porch, watching a movie, or being in nature.

In some of those cases I have a preference to be alone.  As I’m easily distracted when someone speaks to me, I’d rather drive alone, cut the grass alone (until I get a bigger seat), and read and write alone.  As soon as someone speaks to me while I’m doing any of these things, I might easily pass my turnoff or lose my place since my brain literally can only do one thing at a time and, lately, very slowly!

Currently, I’m updating all of the light switches and outlets in my house as well as door knobs and light fixtures.  Since I’m not a trained carpenter or electrician, I often find obstacles that are unique to me that require lots of research, trial and error, and plain think-time.  My brain functions in a very specific order that allows me to stay focused and eventually get to an acceptable solution.  However, if someone offers a suggestion or asks a question that isn’t in the order in which my mind is processing, it throws me off, gets me confused, and sometimes upset (dare I admit, angry?)  Then, if the suggestion or question happens to lead me to a quicker or better solution, it takes me a lot of zen practice and time to get to the point of accepting and appreciating it.  So, while I’m not proud of this behavior, I do know that my preference is to do it alone…for all concerned!

I am a most fortunate man to have the time to do things alone as well as time to share with another.

“When nobody wakes you up in the morning, and when nobody waits for you at night, and when you can do whatever you want. what do you call it, freedom or loneliness?” ~Charles Bukowski (German-American poet, novelist, and short story writer.)