Loneliness is still time spent with the world
10 pm
12th June, 2021
Saturday
Dear Love,
Sometimes, I wonder, do we put up with people because we are afraid of being alone or because we actually like them? How much of our actions are driven by love and how much by loneliness?
Sure, being awake, late at night, when the city sleeps, and the dogs whistle, and the cars whiz past, is poetic, sure, but that late night vulnerability, realising that there’s no one whose name will light up your screen or your face is a thought so crushing that it’s easier to go to bed by 11 pm than cradling this loneliness; close your eyes, quick, else watch the procession of your thoughts parade your naked, skinless self.
Sometimes, even under the crystal blue skies, and sharp sunlight, going through all the apps suffocating my phone and finding not a chat, or a face to converse - it’s just easier to listen to music, dance around to it, watch a movie, lose myself in it, or cook or clean or write or read, than confront this want for companionship.
I am independent. But I am also...lonely.
This ache -
I want my life populated with people, people who’ll flood my posts with comments, people who’ll send me memes and I can send them memes in return, people I can visit, who’ll visit me, and with whom we'll dream and plan and hope and hold, that through the distance, we’ll keep each other in touch, and touch one another with our presence. I want people; not words. I want touch; not dark marks on a screen. I want connection; not the occasional chats or conversations with people who I will never meet, and to whom I can never bare my soul.
Maybe this pandemic has fueled this even more. I am tired of the virtual, yes, but I am more tired of being a lone person on the virtual table, with no one to talk or hang around.
Hence, sometimes, I walk up to the terrace, or stay in my balcony, and look to the skies, with its passing, patterned clouds, and its wild, wispy, wonderous shades and colors with no names, and I lie down and gaze at the whatever stars I can see and find, and sight the moon, if she’s around, and feel the breeze, the city all around, or I sit up, and gaze at the apartments, and its people, and their actions, moving from window to window, light to light, bustling or still, and I hear the birds, or the bats, or the insects or the distant dogs, and I take in all these sights and sounds - the cookers whistling - and the smells - the curries cooking, the strong aroma of the spices, the heavy odor of hot oil and its incessant frying - and I drink it all in, living vicariously through my senses, feeling the ache for companionship shrugging off my skin, as I live and breathe and smell and taste and hear all the life all around me.
Yes, this is no cure (I wonder if there is a cure for loneliness).
Art by Rene Wiley
Yet, when I turn my back to leave, and Loneliness embraces me, becomes second skin, at least it is lighter now, bearable. The sky above is big and vast, and the city around me is alive and present, and for a while I am both sky and city. And someday, surely, this emptiness will ease, and I’ll be emptied of all this longing. Someday, living with Loneliness won’t feel like much. Someday, it’ll all be easier - this living, this being, this everyday existence. Someday. Even if it’s not here and it’s not today.
Tonight, though, I am sitting with Loneliness. She is holding my hand. And I feel okay. Less ache. More alive.
Gorgeous night, isn’t it?
With love,
Shivani