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blogging101, Creative Writing, Faith and Writing, Journaling, Lent 2016, Quotes, Reflections, Writing 101, Writing Prompts
Lent Photo-A-Day (February 10 – March 27, 2016)
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Day 42 — Solitude
Oh gosh… This is a hard one for me. I don’t deal well with solitude. I like my ME time now and then. Even feel starved for it from time to time. But that’s a very different kind of alone than solitude.
When we go up to our cabin and the guys go fishing and I’m left alone for the whole day, I’m usually about ready to crawl out of my skin by the time they get back. Fact is, being alone enough for me to call it solitude leaves me anxious and unsettled.
Two things can happen to me. If I’m TRYING to pretend I want to experience a time of solitude it probably looks like this:
No matter how much I want to meditate, concentrate, even sleep, it’s as if there’s this giant ME in my head thinking it’s a great time to have a chat! For awhile I practiced a bit of meditation, but I could only stay quiet as long as I was swattin’ at thoughts like flies as they whizzed by. Even chanting a mantra or praying a breath prayer didn’t help. So you can imagine I don’t choose to do that very often.
The other thing that USUALLY happens is more like this:
I just get very, very lonely. Then I get depressed. Then I get a bit weepy. Then Drollery may come home from work and find me in a puddle on the floor. He hates that ’cause then he feels like HE has to be sociable when all he really wants to do is have a cookie and read the paper. (He has quite the repertoire of “sighs” to punctuate his exasperation! 
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So I can’t say much about solitude. Thinking about it, though, does make me wonder how Jesus felt when he was in the garden praying and all his friends fell asleep. I’m guessing he was feeling pretty depressed and lonely, too.
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The eternal quest of the
individual human being is to
shatter his loneliness.
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Norman Cousins
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Picture Credits:
climber — www.sfondihd.it
bear — joyreactor.cc
Impromptu Promptlings 
What I find interesting is that solitude, at home, is difficult. I need to be away from where I live my daily life to appreciate my solitude. Being out in Nature, solitude is exquisite. The times I went on retreats, I luxuriated in the solitude. The fact that there are expectations in my home life is what creates a problem. I can’t enjoy my solitude if I’m expected to disturb it for some mundane chore.
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What an excellent thought and comment! Makes me want to ponder on whether my expectations of myself have anything to do with my distaste for solitude. Interesting…
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The expected part mostly includes what others expect of me. In solitude, I try only to be in the moment with no expectations of what should transpire in the Solitude Experience. I think the expectations I’ve had about my personal journey have, however, been responsible for self-judgment – often during – afterward.
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Yes. Me, too.
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This makes me think of the Bible saying that we are made for God’s pleasure. I guess he is not to much into solitude either.
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What an awesome thought, Oneta. You know, that makes me feel better. Thanks for pointing that out.
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You know me!! I need it, I crave it. I’m completely selfish with it.
It’s hard to explain to anyone, let alone make anyone who doesn’t enjoy being alone understand., so I’ve stopped trying to.
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You are fortunate enough to have SO many place to do your thing, girl!
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I’m Blessed. And I don’t take it for granted. 🙏
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I love your candidness, Calen. “No matter how much I want to meditate, concentrate, even sleep, it’s as if there’s this giant ME in my head thinking it’s a great time to have a chat! For awhile I practiced a bit of meditation, but I could only stay quiet as long as I was swattin’ at thoughts like flies as they whizzed by.” Hahaha! I sure know what you mean! Why does my mind always want to chat when I am trying to sleep! Or meditate. Great way of putting it. Thanks, Calen. I love solitude. Sometimes I get lonely, but usually it just means something is coming up that I might need to heal.
Blessings,
Mary
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” I love solitude. Sometimes I get lonely, but usually it just means something is coming up that I might need to heal.” That’s an interesting take on it. I probably should be more aware of what I’m feeling those times. Honestly, sometimes I think the anxiety is coming from NOT wanting to dig around in my cave any more. I keep wondering what happens when you’ve finally peeled away all the layers of the onion!
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ISIS bombed the Main Airport in Belgium and the Railway Station near the EU Buildings. Many, many dead and the injured just rises. Absolutely awful. It was thought that last Saturday when they had the Rugby Final between France and England something would go off then there had been threats. Tomorrow Germany play England in the football, threats have been made there as well.
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Thanks. I checked out the news feed after you posted that. It’s not going to get any better…
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I think there is a big difference between loneliness and being alone. I read something a while back and it took me some time to find it, but tadahhhh here it is:
“Therefore, dear Sir, love your solitude and try to sing out with the pain it causes you. For those who are near you are far away… and this shows that the space around you is beginning to grow vast…. be happy about your growth, in which of course you can’t take anyone with you, and be gentle with those who stay behind; be confident and calm in front of them and don’t torment them with your doubts and don’t frighten them with your faith or joy, which they wouldn’t be able to comprehend. Seek out some simple and true feeling of what you have in common with them, which doesn’t necessarily have to alter when you yourself change again and again; when you see them, love life in a form that is not your own and be indulgent toward those who are growing old, who are afraid of the aloneness that you trust…. and don’t expect any understanding; but believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance, and have faith that in this love there is a strength and a blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
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I LOVE Rilke! And I’ve read this book a couple times. He touches my heart. When he said: For those who are near you are far away… I had to swallow because there are times I feel that so strongly. Truth is, sometimes I wonder just who or what it is that I’m truly missing in those “bear” moments when nothing seems to make me feel better. It’s a puzzlement to me. Thanks for finding that, Bridget. He was such a sensitive soul. Have you read his “Book of Hours?”
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You need to figure out what you are so afraid of.
Rilke is an Austria writer, I HAD to read him…didn’t have a choice. He is not my cup of tea, maybe the translations are better (what would be a first). 🙂
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I WAS kind of surprised when you quoted him. I think often we dislike authors we’ve been forced to read. Some of them we just need to discover on our own when the time is right in our lives. I found that to be true for me, anyway. But then I’m bullheaded like that! I almost didn’t go out with Drollery because everyone thought we were so perfect for each other! (rolls eyes…)
I do think you’re right, though. I could write pages and pages in my journal on why I’m afraid to be alone — I mean things besides the obvious like home invasions! 😮
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You are someone that needs people around you, we are all different. I enjoy Solitude, I find a beauty in it. Trouble is these days we have to make time for our solitude, you saying when you go away and it sounds like you go to the Mountains, to me that sounds wonderful – you would be alone with Nature with all that beauty around you why would you want to share that with anyone. Give me a dog if I need company she soon soothes me, but solitude from people oh yes any time. I believe that Jesus would have liked that solitude he would not have been lonely he would have been contemplating all that was to happen. I know you find it confusing Loner and Lonely but I could never be a complete Loner and never Lonely because I know HE is always there with me.
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Yes, it is in the mountains. You can have it! LOL As to Jesus, when he got up from praying and found his friends asleep (twice, I might add) — the ones whom he’d specifically ASKED to stay awake and pray — he said, can’t you guys even stay awake with me for a little while? He needed them right then. But they were so weary from all they’d seen and heard at the Passover Seder (Jesus washing their feet, him telling them he was going to die, and even that one of them would betray him) that they were full of sorrow and non-understanding. And they all fell asleep.
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Yes, I know but he forgave them, for he knew of what was ahead. Look who betrayed him, Jesus knew he would yet he forgave him. There is only one person you answer to the only person that matters. Lucky you, the mountains that wilderness all that natural beauty around, wander off yourself and take it all in.
Well Belgium hit so terribly this Morning, all those dead and yet Europe can’t get together and bomb the s..t out of ISIS, we won’t be long before we are hit. They will hit Germany and see what the Germans will do, good for them. Never thought I would see President Hollande so determined as he has been since that dreadful night in Paris. David Cameron hear just talks and talks. Obama goes to Cuba too busy having pictures taken of himself.
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Well, I do take comfort in what the Gospels say about Jesus feeling the same things we do. Like you were saying on the one response on your blog, it’s always better to talk to someone who has been where you are.
What happened i Belgium??? Haven’t even got my eyes open yet!
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Isn’t it strange how differently people experience the same thing. For me solitude is sacred time – to connect, to be, to pamper myself in any of a dozen different ways or not, just sit and read, go for a drive or walk…. I love the times of solitude when I have no one for whom I somehow need to be present. It is a time of recharging my batteries. I used to be very scared of being alone at home at night. Now, it doesn’t bother me. I just call in my angels to protect me and my little furball friend keeps me company and growls if needs be. I treasure my times of solitude.
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I do know what you mean. And I experience those things, too. But not so removed from people that it would be called solitude. When we’d have compline at the retreat house and no one would speak, I would take myself off to the little chapel and sit. It was very much a sacred time. And yet there were 20+ women in the same building with me. I think we kind of all experienced it that way. (And the fact that the building was one that held so many prayers over the years made it seem all that more sacred, if you know what I mean. It had housed the nuns for years.)
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