Quarantine Diary - Loneliness

Yesterday I walked in the Prairie Home cemetery (which is only a few blocks from here). Cemeteries are beautiful places to walk; green and quiet. Time to reflect if one is feeling reflective. Or if one is feeling uncentered (who, me?) a cemetery can pull one back to the middle of what to think about and care for and pursue.

I saw a tombstone with the names of three daughters who died. Sophronia. What a beautiful name. What would those parents have given for vaccines and antibiotics?

Les Paul is buried in this cemetery. Those dots are guitar picks.

The photo I didn’t take was of an old man sitting in his parked car. The car was shiny clean and he was dressed sharp; navy shirt with a collar, gold watch on his arm resting along his car’s opened window. It seemed as if he was just sitting there thinking about or talking to someone. I said good morning to him, he replied with a cheerful hello.

There are many reasons why a nicely dressed 80ish man might be parked in a cemetery at 8:30 on a Sunday morning. But the obvious reason is the one that broke my heart.

Loneliness is hard. Loneliness takes one’s breath away. It empties out the place where one’s spirit lives. Sometimes it is a headache, a backache, dry eyes that are not looking for anything.

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I recently read a review about a graphic book that explores the theme of loneliness. The book is “Seeking You” by Kristin Radtke. I have it on order at the library so if it’s good, I will let you know after I read it.

One of Radtke’s observations is that our culture has themes for loneliness. There’s the powerful, lonely man (John Wayne) who rides alone, take care of everyone else, then goes home to his empty bunk.

For women we have “the lonely princess” stuck in her castle who needs a prince to awaken and rescue her. (Any movie with Julia Roberts, for example)

Manly loneliness is powerful. Female loneliness is powerless. Good Grief. How many widowed women do you know still grieving their loss who keep going, keep contributing to their community, keep hanging out with friends, keep cooking healthy meals for themselves and sometimes for others? (Some of you are that person.)

And then there was Len’s grandfather, who, when long-suffering Helen passed away, immediately stopped eating anything except salted walnuts and stopped drinking anything except no-name bourbon and 36-packs of beer. Good at loneliness?

We recognize these stereotypes and most of us see their emptiness. Well, probably. Len and I started watching Mr. Robot and Lord Love a Duck, it’s about our new American cowboy - the lonely computer genius. Here we go again.

This is the sentence in the interview that really caught my attention. “Stories are how we draw ourselves closer to one another, and how we remember, and sometimes how we reshape.”

Stories versus loneliness. Telling ourselves who we were, who we are now, what happened back then, how we used to interact with our loved ones. Deciding for ourselves how and who and what we choose to remember – and who we intentionally choose to forget. Shaping and reshaping our stories.

“You're both the fire and the water that extinguishes it. You're the narrator, the protagonist, and the sidekick. You're the storyteller and the story told. You are somebody's something, but you are also your you.” John Green, Turtles All the Way Down

How do you tell your story of being lonely? Are you a victim? Are you a person who fights through the brambles and thickets of loss to share, offer, laugh with, be kind to others? Are you a person in a relationship who often feels lonely? Do you look at your partner or kid or BFF and wonder if they even know who you are?

We are in a new and different quarantine. Until we know who is vulnerable, and how vulnerable, and until our kids are safe – here we mostly are. More alone than we expected to be. Still shaping and reshaping our stories.

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This is the review.