It pays to be sensitive about our need for solitude. I’m talking about time alone in the midst of a busy life. When I notice myself fading away from the social scene, I look for an opportunity to remove myself for some quiet time, rather than rudely stare off into the distance. Then when I am with people, there is a better chance that I can be present to them.
     This weekend during our visit to Lancaster, I stayed back at the house while the rest of the family went antiquing. I napped, wrote, read and walked. I was renewed. It wasn’t enough just to have silence; I loved being completely alone with no other human being in view.

Yesterday when I woke up I said to myself, “I think I’ll go to Boston today.” I was reminded of “Mr. Bear Goes to Boston,” a book about a bear living the Maine woods who wakes up one morning and tells himself just that; and off he goes.

        I wasn’t conscious that I needed to get off alone, but wandering about by myself felt deeply satisfying. I got off the T at Park Street and then headed in the general direction of Quincy Market. My only plan was eventually to end up for lunch at my favorite Japanese restaurant near Copley Square, and then to hop on the T and head home.

     Wanderings found me crossing the Rose Kennedy Greenway and paying a visit to Paul Revere’s house, zigzagging Beacon Hill, waving to the duckling at the Public Garden, and riding the swan boats.

      There was good energy in Boston. Tourists and locals, those in groups and those alone were enjoying themselves. Boston is a great city; Boston is strong.

All our intense family activity has subsided and I’m now living in a period of relative silence, solitude, and simplicity. How grateful am I? Very. For the next month and a half my plan is to write, read, walk, and hang out with Jim and with friends. A rather normal retirement life, I must admit. In September I’m heading back to Italy and then hopefully in November, I’ll be starting my sixth year going back and forth from the cottage to home. But for now it’s home life at its best.

     Of course, not everyone wants the amount or kinds of silence and solitude that do. What resonates with each of us is very particular, and that’s is how it should be. The challenge is to create what we want and need in our lives. My current rhythm of home, solitary travel, home, week days at the cottage, and home didn’t just happen full bloom one day. It been an on-going process, continually morphing from who I was, am, and am becoming. As a child I was happy being by myself and playing with friends. I spent my junior year of college in Italy, learning to travel alone and live away from home (few young people, no internet). When our kids were growing up I carved time for myself in the early morning before anyone was up.  

     Recently I heard of a women who longs for just a few moments by herself--her husband has dementia and follows her around all the time. Clearly she doesn’t have the freedom that I have, but who would question that she doesn’t deserve a chunk of time each day that she can call her own. And there lies the rub. Although no one would question it, can she speak up for it? And how? It is easier on everyone if our desires appear subtly over time, rather than scream out in the midst of stressing situations. Hopefully this woman doesn’t need to scream, but for her well-being she must speak up. Perhaps she can look at her family patterns and find a way that will get her some time alone. From this side of the blog, I’m sending her encouragement.

I’ve picked up If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit, a gem of a book by Brenda Ueland (1891-1985) that I put down for two months before I went to Scotland and became involved in family and Camp Fisher activities. Now my life is my own again and I’m settling into my home version of solitude, and into my writing..

     I love Ueland’s message, blunt and unconventional. Just listen to this!

     “But the great artists like Michelangelo and Blake and Tolstoi—like Christ whom Blake called an artist because he had one of the most creative imaginations that every was on earth—do not want security, egoistic or materialistic. Why, it never occurs to them….So they dare to be idle, i.e., not to be pressed and duty driven all the time. They dare to love people even when they are very bad, and they dare not to try and dominate others to show them what they must do for their own good. For great and creative men know what is best for every man is his own freedom so that his imagination can grow in it’s own way, even if that way, to you or to me, or to policemen or churchgoers, seems very bad indeed.”

      That’s enough to ponder for the rest of the summer, or year, or a lifetime. Of course we’re not all great artists, but that’s not the point. We all have a creativity, imagination, spirit, whatever you want to call it, to nurture and express, even if only to ourselves.

     What resonates with me is the permission Ueland’s gives me, all of us, to be idle, to be free from the duties that we feel the rest of the world is pressing on us. In that idleness, experienced in solitude, we are free, free to create, but also free to let go of the judgments we have about other people. When I dare take the counter-cultural stance and go to the cottage or travel alone, I satisfy my own good. It may appear selfish, but I think of it as being honest, which is essential for inner peace, and that I dare to assert is the ultimate goal of all of us..

      Where do the memories of my artist dad fit into all of this? As my sister said at the gallery opening of his work, Dad was disciplined. It’s a given that to be good at anything we have to practice. But Dad also took time to be idle.  Again I’m reminded of all those times when I would see him sitting in a chair in the woods. Sometimes he had a sketchbook with him, but my recollection is that he just sat. I wish I could ask him what he was thinking, what his process was. But maybe the memory of him ‘perched’ there as I, absorbed in my play, ran by, is enough. Dad and I, both in our imaginations, working things out. Dad, the grownup, thinking.  Me, the active ten-year old, active, my thoughts and actions working simultaneously. Now, sixty years later, I’m more in my head although I get many of my best thoughts while walking. Regardless, whether sitting or walking,  I am idle and alone.

Finally, solitude after a three-day marvelous whirl with my siblings in Minneapolis to celebrate our niece’s marriage. These kinds of reunions are never quiet; it’s not their nature. Since I usually travel alone, I’m not used to chatter in hotel rooms, discussions about the day’s plans, or eating meal after meal with others. No complaints, just an observation.

     As we were eating lunch the other day, my brother noted that this was the first time ever that just the four of us had shared a meal together. When I think of it, that is remarkable; but it’s also remarkable that our Mom died three years ago at age 101. Many of our recent gatherings had involved being with her and the extended family. And then there are all those meals together when we were kids!

      So here I am at the airport waiting for my flight to Boston; my sisters are on their way to New York and Washington DC, my brother to Portland, Oregon. I’ll post this when I get home.

It’s true, for some, that solitude equals loneliness, which equates to fear. Although I don’t seem to experience this, the possibility was brought home to me the other day when a scrawny little mouse, racing from one snow bank to another between two buildings down by the beach,  skittered in front of me. He stopped, seemingly frozen with fear; I could have reached out and picked him up. Being alone didn’t bode well for this little fellow. Where was his community? What was his reason for being, naked out there in the elements? I’m thinking that loneliness equals fear, equals lack of meaning. And having meaning is our reason for being.

Another Monday, making the shift from social to solitude. We all slide back and forth on the continuum, some spending more time than others at one end or another. It is very likely, due to my life stage and particular circumstances, that I spend more time in solitude than most of you. Family and career obligations are pretty much over, but the joy of family keeps me gregarious. It also may that I crave more solitude than many of you. Solitude is where I long to be.

      This morning I was in heaven as I left the dentist and started driving  the familiar route to the cottage. I stopped to buy some clam chowder, and then, here I was, savoring as I sat watching the sea. Right now I’m mighty content anticipating three full days completely alone. But, please understand, it’s not just the anticipation, it’s the moment by moment being.

Here’s why I return to the cottage by the sea and spend my first waking hour sitting, watching, being. Very grateful.