"The loners are always trouble. You know that." ~ Alex Scarrow
Funny thing, this. This directive to self-isolate, to avoid people in this time of pandemic. I don't mind a bit. Which I suppose is a provocative thing to say. After all, humans have often stigmatized solitude. In our hurly-burly, busy, rapid world the embrace of seclusion and isolation is relatively unusual. Solitude is considered an awkwardness, something to deflect, a sanction, the purview of losers.
But, at heart, I am a loner and always have been. As an artist and writer, solitude is where I go to visit those thresholds, those liminal spaces where my muse resides. It is where I wait for those ephemeral whispers to tickle at my ears; where I watch for those small wisps of movement out of the corner of my eye. Where I free my mind to surrender - such that it can catch those fugacious shreds of creativity. Being isolated on our little farm, our little Fat Hummingbird Farm, is an opportunity to expand into the world that is here, in solitude and reclusiveness. Also, as an artist, I am well aware that solitude allows for the reflection and observation necessary for the creative process. Creative people (both artists and scientists, for that matter) tend to have solitary natures. Being solitary leads to openness and receptivity to odd thoughts and singular experiences. Creatives have an autonomy, an independence, which includes a lack of concern for social norms and a preference for being alone.
That is not to say that I don't enjoy people dropping by for coffee and conversation; or to share a glass to wine on our porch; or to have great-tasting suppers with vibrant conversations about great books read or entertaining plays seen or of moving concerts heard; whether biochar is better than hugelkultur; what seeds or trees we have acquired to share; or what the politics of the day are. I enjoy those things immensely. I really do. As solitude is important for artists so is experiencing the world and the people around us. I would really miss interacting with the special people we know and have known through our lifetimes. I am missing them at this time of pandemic. But I also enjoy my solitude. I guess you could say that I am an extroverted introvert.
I was a loner child and I have grown into a loner adult. It is not that I eschew or fear the company of others or that I am pathologically shy. It is simply that I prefer being solitary. I was a terrible friend, growing up. If a friend contacted me and wished to go for coffee or some such thing, I would happily go - and even have a good time. But I would never think to call them seeking their company or advice, or conversation. I would go to a film by myself before it would occur to me to ask for company. Those that are my true friends understand this about me and don't take offence. In fact, I have several friends and our relationships are deep and rich - but we don't "live in each others' back pockets", as my mother used to say.
I didn't spend weekends or summery days with friends. I wanted to be alone. My father worked two jobs and upon arriving home he liked to read the newspaper to unwind. He always asked us to leave him alone to read. He enjoyed this time of solitude, listening to his Dean Martin and Marty Robbins records. I liked to sneak up occasionally and peer in at him. Though while he read the paper he chewed unrelentingly at his fingernails, he presented such a picture of contentment that my heart went out to him. Due to chronic pain, my father couldn't sit for very long in the last years of his life - at least not long enough to read an entire paper. His fingernails, that were by then permanently gnawed down to the quick, reminded me of his rapt solitude when he was most content. I have much of the same contentment in solitude that my father had.
Our neighbourhood had several families with children my age, all of us immigrants from one part of the world or another. We wandered the neighbourhood en masse, with a motley crew of dogs in tow. We spilled out onto the prairie and played mostly in the coulees, creeks, and ravines of our prairie back yard. But at some point I would break off from the group and find a solitary tree to read under or lay out on on large, flat rock warmed by the sun. Sometimes, when the group moved on, I would stay behind and continue to amuse myself with drawing pictures in the dust with sticks, singing made-up songs to myself, or running along the banks of a creek following the leaves I had dropped in. A dog or two would stay and keep me company, kicking up panicked clouds of minnows as they splashed clumsily through the creek bed alongside me.
As we all grew closer to our teens, things began to change in the group dynamic. They grew interested in drive-in movies, school dances, sports, and cultivated new friendships in school. The prairie and the unstructured outdoors were no longer of interest to them. In high school, especially, I became an outsider. But it didn't bother me because I didn't want to become a cheerleader, or part of some sorority, or a member of the bevy of girls that cruised the mall. I think the fact that it genuinely didn't bother me saved me from teasing and ridicule. Other kids were nice to me, boys asked me out to the dances, but they had finally come to understand my solitariness. They had come to view me as the girl unknown. I was a familiar face as we moved up the grades together, nothing more. Though I attended the school dances occasionally and even joined the folk music club, I was not at all interested in 'hanging out'. And so I was left behind. They didn't reject me. I rejected them. I preferred my own solitary company.
And the silence was euphoric. Strumming my guitar in my room, reading down by the creek, walking down along an old trail. Me, and the wind, and birdsong, perhaps the dog, sometimes a horse. I needed no more than that. Like now, observing a day in the life of Fat Hummingbird Farm. Just that.
Ultimately, I accept myself as I am. I am a loner and it's okay. I have a husband, son, and grandchildren whom I love and who love me. They understand me. I have friends whom I love and who love me. They understand me. I am exceedingly blessed that my husband is someone with whom I can be side by side - together but able to orbit in our own worlds, comfortable in silence or conversation; bumping up against each other physically or mentally from time to time. With a mutual respect for each other's solitude. Though I am a loner, I am not alone.
It is easy to be solitary here on our Fat Hummingbird Farm. Easy to step out of the busyness of life and slow to the pace of nature and the country. Easy to self-isolate and keep our distance. Being solitary, especially in the country, I feel I can hear everything. The tapping of the woodpecker in the oak tree; the wind alternately whistling and shushing down the mountain and through the woods. Yes, those things. But also every thought - curious, insecure, worrying, pensive, hallelujah and eureka - swirling around in my alone-but-not-lonely mind. And when you are a solitary person, and live in a place steeped in solitude, you learn to let those voices finish what they have to say. I think when you have the quiet fields and woods of the country and a solitary heart and the directives of a frightened world to 'self-isolate' you become . . . well . . . a lot closer to death. Or at least to thinking about it. And thinking on death makes you value things. To hold them a little at a distance and peer a little more carefully at them. Merton said "we cannot see things in perspective until we cease to hug them to our bosom". To find out what matters.
Moving to Fat Hummingbird Farm almost two years ago now allowed me to find the solitude that I crave. The isolation that I crave, that I need. Self-isolate? No problem. Stay away from others? No worries. I will still enjoy the coffee chats around our kitchen bar, the wine on the porch, the visits to walk over our land and discuss trees, the garrulous suppers with valued and loved friends. But, you know, I am not lonely. Merely alone and solitary with the loved man and animals and, yes, friends, I have chosen to share my solitary world with.
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