On Loneliness

Nobody is awake when I start my day.
Nobody is with me when I end it.
In the middle, writing, work and family.
I am not lonely.
Until I am.

I am beginning to consider the idea that writing – the act of it, the space it gives and takes, the heart of it – is a lonely thing. It connects you with One, and if you are giving attention, by definition, there are no others. Yet, that is not exactly true, is it? All the others are the One. And if we are One in the writing then surely we must be the One in everything else.

At 5 a.m. I started up the dark road and began to see stars through the canopy break. At first, I thought perhaps I had lost my wonderment of the display. Maybe it wasn’t as dazzling as I remembered or as infinite. But as the walk deepened and my eyes adjusted to mapping darkness, suddenly the stars burst into millions of sparks. My question is: was I more lonely when the stars were boring or when the stars were on fire?

Recently I told a friend that it is a tiny miracle when one can choose love over fear. Later that day, back in the circulation room at the library, everyone was talking about how cheating in the context of relationships was bad, “disgusting” even. I looked at their young faces and knew they needed the rules. I thought of how I have needed rules – rules for a good life – rules to break for freedom – rules made for equality, and I think maybe it is important for me to say that many of these rules are a choice for fear. It is time to understand love as the only rule.