How To Be Alone

[Guest BrandonWilliams]

A wonderful poem I just discovered by Tanya Davis. View the YouTube clip and be prepared to sit and think.

 

 

Below is the full poem:

 

If you are at first lonely, be patient.

If you’ve not been alone much, or if when you were, you weren’t okay with it, then just wait. You’ll find it’s fine to be alone once you’re embracing it.

We can start with the acceptable places, the bathroom, the coffee shop, the library, where you can stall and read the paper, where you can get your caffeine fix and sit and stay there. Where you can browse the stacks and smell the books; you’re not supposed to talk much anyway so it’s safe there.

There is also the gym, if you’re shy, you can hang out with yourself and mirrors, you can put headphones in.

Then there’s public transportation, because we all gotta go places.

And there’s prayer and mediation, no one will think less if your hanging with your breath seeking peace and salvation.

Start simple. Things you may have previously avoided based on your avoid being alone principles.

The lunch counter, where you will be surrounded by “chow downers”, employees who only have an hour and their spouses work across town, and they, like you, will be alone.

Resist the urge to hang out with your cell phone.

When you are comfortable with “eat lunch and run”, take yourself out for dinner; a restaurant with linen and Silverware. You’re no less an intriguing a person when you are eating solo desert and cleaning the whip cream from the dish with your finger. In fact, some people at full tables will wish they were where you were.

Go to the movies. Where it’s dark and soothing, alone in your seat amidst a fleeting community.

And then take yourself out dancing, to a club where no one knows you, stand on the outside of the floor until the lights convince you more and more and the music shows you. Dance like no one’s watching because they’re probably not. And if they are, assume it is with best human intentions. The way bodies move genuinely to beats, is after-all, gorgeous and affecting. Dance until you’re sweating. And beads of perspiration remind you of life’s best things. Down your back, like a book of blessings.

Go to the woods alone, and the trees and squirrels will watch for you. Go to an unfamiliar city, roam the streets, they are always statues to talk to, and benches made for sitting gives strangers a shared existence if only for a minute, and these moments can be so uplifting and the conversation you get in by sitting alone on benches, might of never happened had you not been there by yourself.

Society is afraid of alone though. Like lonely hearts are wasting away in basements. Like people must have problems if after awhile nobody is dating them.

But lonely is a freedom that breathes easy and weightless, and lonely is healing if you make it.

You can stand swathed by groups and mobs or hands with your partner, look both further and farther in the endless quest for company.

But no one is in your head. And by the time you translate your thoughts an essence of them maybe lost or perhaps it is just kept. Perhaps in the interest of loving oneself, perhaps all those “sappy slogans” from pre-school over to high school groaning, we’re tokens for holding the lonely at bay.

Cause if you’re happy in your head, then solitude is blessed, and alone is okay.

It’s okay if no one believes like you, all experiences unique, no one has the same synapses, can’t think like you, for this be relived, keeps things interesting, life’s magic things in reach, and it doesn’t mean you aren’t connected, and the community is not present, just take the perspective you get from being one person in one head and feel the effects of it.

Take silence and respect it.

If you have an art that needs a practice, stop neglecting it, if your family doesn’t get you or a religious sect is not meant for you, don’t obsess about it.

You could be in an instant surrounded if you need it.

If your heart is bleeding, make the best of it.

There is heat in freezing, be a testament

[wayout]

Brandon, Thanks for sharing this thought provoking poem/video. I truly enjoyed it and it resonated with me quite a bit. As I have gotten older, I tend to enjoy more and more the times when I am alone to think, reflect, ponder life and simply enjoy the moment.

[NYTomcat]

That is one of those remarkable poems that Just seems to speak to the reader alone - seems apropos. Its gentle calming like an intimate whisper that is only there for you. Perhaps its my place in life right now that has that fear in my forefront that makes me so susceptible to it. But thank you Brandon.

[rocky]

Wow, this one hit me between the eyes. As a 56 year old single man I didn't have problems being alone or enjoying life alone. Well as I've got in to my AARP years and actually enjoyed the company of escorts for companionship I began to question my being alone. But this did tell me that indeed there can be a life alone even as I grow older. I thank all of those men who have made my life enjoyable but also appreciate my alone. Rocky

[+ purplekow]

Today as I was driving the other two participants of my birthday threeway back to Madhatten, I noticed them both manically fingering....no not that....their phones and computer programs. No quiet conversation, would have been difficult anyway with the convertible roof down, but i did remark to them that baby boomers, it seemed to me, were much more comfortable being alone, undistracted, unentertained, undiverted from their own thoughts. It was my opinion that becoming an adult through the rapid fire stimuli which is becoming more and more prevalent, has left the post boomers as persons ill equipped to be alone, let alone make a decision alone. How many of us have overheard a portion of a conversation that goes something like this. "Honey I am at the SuperMarket" "SuperWholeShopTown" "Aisle three" "Canned vegetables" "Peas, carrots or peas and carrots?" "Salt free, sugar free, lactose free or fiber free" "Small, individual, family, small family, large, gargantuan, bargain or Best Buy?" "Hexagonal cut carrots or diced?" "Green Giant. Red Rooster, Mother Brown's or Purplekow's?" All this noise being sent out into the universe over a can of vegetables which will remain unopened for decades and then when finally cooked and presented, the contents will remain umeaten, because lets face it, just about no one likes canned carrots and peas. Left alone with their thoughts, most people quickly die of boredom. That is never more true than today and will never be less true.

[Guest BrandonWilliams]

Purplekow.....very insightful reply, but must you tease us with "birthday threeway?" It's sounds as if one must have had a VERY happy birthday!

 

One of the reasons the poem caught my attention is the fact that I think it has a universal message. The very definition of being alone can be different for each of us and often changes at various points on the journey in life.

 

"You’re no less an intriguing a person when you are eating solo desert and cleaning the whip cream from the dish with your finger. In fact, some people at full tables will wish they were where you were." I absolutely love the last sentence in this stanza.

 

I'll be anxious awaiting the details of your wild birthday party. It sounds as if you must have worn out your guests as they needed to retreat to a bit of solitude.

[KMEM]

In 1962, at a dinner in the White House honoring Nobel Prize winners, JFK remarked, "I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone."

 

Best regards,

KMEM

[+ purplekow]

I included the information about the threeway for several reasons: Irony posting about being alone after spending the night in a threeway. Tittillation hey I have to have some reply to all this Raul Manzo meets ScrewMe DoMe and WhoMe? Suspense Names withheld to incite speculation. Braggadoccio Hey what is more fun than rubbing your good fortune into the face of others. \

My guests were hardly worn out and if they were, it would be mainly due to the intensity of their flip flop fucking that left each of them coming in a growl and howl. Or perhaps I revealed too much?

[+ purplekow]

Spent the day totally alone. Me and the dogs. Not an e mail, junk mail, newspaper, novel, twitter, phone call, holler over the fence. Just me and dogs and they know me so well and know themselves so well that no words passed between me and them. They came when I need solace and they left when I needed to be alone. They came when their food was ready and left when...when the food was done. I spent the day alone. I spent the day alone. I spent the day alone and it helped to realize, that tomorrow I am getting laid hard and long. I head to bed knowing that tomorrow, I will not spend the day alone.

[rvwnsd]

A couple of weeks ago, I had an intense day at work and was exhausted when I got home. After taking a walk (no iPod while walking, I like hearing the city sounds) I decided to have dinner at a favorite restaurant. Alone. The restaurant was semi-full and a little noisy when I arrived. As I dined, the crowd thinned until it consisted of me, a small party in another room, and two guys at the bar. At this point, I could hear the music they were playing. It was a song that my late mother loved to sing. Had I not been alone, I would not have heard that song.

 

I do not like to spend all of my time by myself. However, I do savor those moments when my company includes me, myself, and I...and sometimes my mom.

[Diverdan]

Hey, PURPLE COW... we'd love to see some pictures of that birthday celebration with you and the other two guys ! Or at least share who they were. Will you be writing a review to share with us? I hope so. I just had one in LA and am in the process of writing a review too.

[+ purplekow]

Diverdan, The evening was a success but no reviews will be written. I wish I did take photos. I do get to replay in my mind each of the escorts fucking the other to completion. Believe me, you don't want any pictures with me included. My corpulent frame would only distract from the strawberry blond haired muscular chest of my gentleman caller from Texas or the infamous equipment of my San Francisco treat. That should give you enough information to discern my birthday buddies.

[Guest BrandonWilliams]

Purplekow....might I just say I'm a bit bitter that I was not sandwiched between the "strawberry blond haired muscular chest of my gentleman caller from Texas or the infamous....San Francisco treat." Now that, my friend, would have made a very pretty picture! You might not have been able to blow out your candles after enjoying that fest.