Solitude

I’ve been thinking about solitude these past few days because I’ve had the luxury, the gift of being alone. Solitude is being alone without being lonely. As Jean-Paul Sartre said, “If you’re lonely when you’re alone, you’re in bad company.” That Sartre was quite a wit.

There is no sense of deprivation about solitude, no something-is-missing-here ache that won’t go away, no longing. It is not about feeling isolated or being withdrawn or passive. It is about active engagement with oneself and with the natural world.

I love it. And I crave it. And I never cease to learn from it.

It wasn’t all that long ago when solitude meant grabbing 45 minutes for myself while children were otherwise engaged. I should take a hot bath with lighted candles while listening to Enya, I would think. That’s what all the magazines say to do. “Me time,” ya know. But I hate baths (sitting in your own shedding epithelial cells), finding and setting up the candles is a lot of work. And, oh, I hate Enya. So those infrequent moments of glorious solitude were filled with tweezing eyebrows or shaving legs. (Yes, solitude was all about the bathroom…the only lockable door in the house.)

Now, fast forward into my life – and boy do I ever mean fast – and I have the luxury of disappearing to a little house 100 miles from home (friends, family, chores, Yogurt Extreme) and just be. Well, just be after a full day of writing. But still.

Sometimes during those non-work hours, sometimes, but too rarely, I am thoughtless. As in, without thought. As in, just inhabiting the moment. Although there’s no “just” to it, is there? But most times I am doing what I do when I am alone, when I can do whatever I want, when I don’t have to consider what someone else might want or like, when I don’t have to take into account someone else’s habits and foibles, when I can throw open all the windows and create the Arctic in my bedroom, when I can read while I eat and eat what I want (Brussels sprouts roasted with garlic and Walla Walla sweets), when the only laundry I have to fold is my own.

It’s not that I want to live this way all the time. I do love my family. I do enjoy the company of friends. But I do so need this solitary time.

Do you? What do you do when you’re alone and can do anything?