Alive In My Solitude

 “This idea is tied to Buddhist theme of mindfulness—the practiced ability to live in the present. The life cycle of these flowers make us question why we fail to live life to the fullest, why we don’t spend time with our loved ones, and why we do not take the time to simply pay attention to the living, breathing world around us. Cherry blossom festivals are a time to regain our perspective on life, and to make a promise not to take the good things in our lives for granted.”

The Symbolism of the Cherry Blossom.

The blossoming cherry trees and the bells of North Cambridge soothe my feelings of anxiety during the late afternoons of my physical isolation. It makes me so happy that Spring is finally here, and that my very favorite month, May, can be enjoyed from my office window. 

I’m a bit old fashioned, my brother used to say that I was born old. I like the quiet. I like being alone. The world is with me now. We are all quiet. We are all alone. With my window open, a cup of warm tea in one hand and a joint in the other, I am able to take a break for a few minutes from the cleaning, cooking and the never-ending list of chores one has to do in a house full of humans and pets, and can think while breathing the fresh Spring air and listen to the birds. Most days I sit with the radio on, tuned into NPR, and allow the words of doom and gloom fill the space in my head. But when I light up that joint and hold my tea, it’s nature’s music  that helps me escape the feelings of dread about what is happening out there, in the world I can’t really see anymore. 

I’ve been in and out of the outside world where my skills would be monetized and my purpose was tied to a job, but mostly out, for over twenty years. For a while I monetized my time by ending marriages. When that failed I tried to make it in politics. That didn’t work out so great either. It left me with feelings of failure and a humming sense that I had no purpose beyond mothering. 

There was a time in my life when I thought feeling “joy” doing the mundane was impossible. But I now know we must feel hope and awe in the smallest moments in this big and unknowable world or we are doomed to miss life. I’ve been thinking that cannabis is making me less efficient because allowing myself to just sit and think goes against all notions of capitalistic efficiency. But like the children’s book Frederick teaches us, we need to observe to see and to create the stories that sustain us when we are unable to “work.”

Now when I take my window break I wonder if we will emerge into a new world that will be nicer to all humans and find a way to see everyone, and we will understand our purpose is greater than a paycheck. I hope we will understand how exceptional we all are. I wonder what stories we will create from our silence and solitude.

In my solitude I am alive with feelings of joy and hope that my generation of women, each with our own imperfect actions and persistent hope, will move us forward with radical acts of micro-leadership into a future we are all ready to see because we created the people who will inherit it. I don’t think of myself as an early adaptor but maybe I am. By spending time with myself and failing and persisting and finding power in the quiet when everyone else was really busy, I understand myself and am comfortable just being me. I had to or I would perish. And I know that not everyone is interested in me or wants to see the value I can add, but that doesn’t matter. What I know for certain is that the prism of sight is infinite and who we are may not be accessible to the prism of others. But in this moment of crisis we must all see each other as the exceptional beings we are and care for each other as we create the future together.