How to be alone
I’ve always been good at being alone. In my mid-twenties, I spent nearly two years living out of a suitcase, living and working in dirt-cheap Airbnbs (those still existed back then). Instead of hanging out with actual people, I spent my time figuring out where to find the best lunch in Ho Chi Minh city, or how to do my laundry in a Soviet era-looking laundromat in Berlin, or where to find a laptop-friendly place to work in Paris that also opened before noon.
I remember often feeling lonely in those times, but I also distinctly remember it being a kind of loneliness I didn’t want to remedy. It felt productive to learn how to befriend my own thoughts for long stretches of time. To interact with the world as an outwardly curious yet self-contained unit. To know that even though I was alone, I still deserved to do and taste and see nice things.
These days, of course, loneliness is on a lot of people’s minds. The difference now is that even if you are a person that values solitude like I do, this is a kind of aloneness we didn’t choose. It was inflicted upon us — the difference between being forced to read 100 pages for homework versus sinking the last third of a novel during a lazy afternoon on vacation.
Every day, those of us who are alone and working from home must wake up and summon the considerable motivation to get to the end of the day without descending into … the abyss. Sometimes a short walk for a cold brew is the only thing that stands between here and there. The hardest part is that no one else will know either way.
My current episode of solitude comes with a novel flavour, because I recently moved to a new place (here’s a short essay I wrote about that). Lots of people are talking about fleeing cities during this time, and while I could talk about the very obvious benefits, I should also warn you that moving to a new place during a pandemic is an absolutely absurd thing to do. There are practical conundrums, like when delivery men are allowed to deposit your large appliance to your street level door, but current guidelines mean they can’t carry it up the three flights of stairs. (Reader, I paid them off and they handily obliged.)
Then there are the more psychological ones. For the first time since I moved to another country a decade ago, I can’t easily get on a plane to see my family; I simply do not know when that will change. Taking the train to see my friends or relatives in London is possible, but comes with a calculation of risk. (It’s a risk that, with the UK’s current case count, I have felt okay about taking occasionally — but only just). And having recently ended a longterm relationship, I’m still navigating that feeling of having to do everything — from dealing with a plumbing emergency on a Friday morning to filling a Sunday afternoon with something other than doomscrolling the internet — all by myself.
In some ways moving has made it easier to come to terms with the new world we’re all living in. There’s a symmetry to the considerable change I’ve inflicted upon myself, and the seismic change inflicted upon us by a viral pathogen and incompetent governments. Nothing is the same, but at least I had some agency in making it that way.
My new life means I can go swimming after work (divine), I can afford to live in a two bedroom flat alone (as good as I imagined it), and I have 24/7 access to the nervous system tonic that is the sea (that’s what happens when you leave London). But it also means that even the thrilling scraps of social life I’ve enjoyed recently — a bloody mary on a Sunday! yoga outside with other people! — are not guaranteed to continue. I’m aware that as much as I’m enjoying living alone for the first time, there’s a chance that in the coming months I may be forced to spend more time in my bright and breezy flat than I want to.
In all this loneliness and hyper-vigilance, the thing that is bringing me the most comfort is plain old words. While listening to the recent “How to Be Alone” episode of This American Life, I walked home from my morning cold brew mission as if splayed open. It does that thing that all great art does: Makes you feel less lonely. Similarly, this piece about the frustration of not being able to visit family in America perfectly captures the feeling of being a privileged person who, for the first time, is confronting what it’s like when your movement isn’t so free: infuriating, sad, isolating.
This particular form of comfort has always been why I’m drawn to writing. That we can feel a genuine human connection based on the thoughts of one person transmitted through a page, or a screen, or headphones is one of those subtly powerful things that makes life worth living. And though I don’t want to jinx it, I’m fairly certain even the virus can’t take that away.
Programming note: Some dedicated readers (I appreciate you!) reported that they did not receive last month’s edition. I think the spam filter gods did not like my subject line and/or image size. If you are feeling particularly greedy today, you can read the last edition here.
Things I Enjoyed Reading:
“My medium-size dreams for myself may be getting smaller, but my ambitions for the greater wide world have to be enormous.” On losing your personal ambition as the world burns. [GEN]
On the trauma and disembodiment of Zoom. (I promise this is more interesting than all the other pieces you’ve read about Zoom). [Medium]
Roxane Gay on traveling to Europe for the first time in a fatphobic world. Her writing is so clear-eyed and excellent. [Zora]
The Guardian’s series on the choice to be childfree is so edifying, I just lament that it took until 2020 to exist. [The Guardian]
Rough sleeping has largely disappeared in the UK during the pandemic. Why? “For all the existing vulnerabilities the coronavirus has exposed … it has also revealed how easily seemingly intractable problems can be fixed—with enough political will.” [The Atlantic]
It’s 2022. What does life look like? This piece delivered in a way I did not expect it to. [New York Times]
The only person who is more offended by Nespresso coffee than I am is my dad, so we had a great time discussing this savagely perfect piece. [The Guardian]
“Three sticky nectarines and a handful of humidity-softened potato chips” — Helen Rosner on the uncooked summer dinner is a delight. [New Yorker]
Jia Tolentino with a very clear prescription of what a more equitable and just America could look like. [Interview Magazine]
“There is one rule about Twitter that is probably worth knowing about … ‘Each day on Twitter there is one main character. The goal is to never be it.’” On being in the eye of a Twitter storm. [The Critic]
Things I enjoyed listening to:
There are probably more anti-vaxxers in your life than you think. To me, this is scarier than the pandemic itself. [The Daily]
What it’s like to lead the New York Times when the very notion of journalistic objectivity — as historically defined by white men — is in question. A fascinating interview on the future of journalism with Dean Baquet. [Longform Podcast]
As the world reckons with racism and injustice in all forms, I’ve been figuring out what I think about cancel culture. This pleasantly wonky and granular conversation between Ezra Klein and Yascha Mounk got me to a place of clarity: The people crying about cancel culture are disproportionately NOT the BIPOC, trans, and non-binary people who are materially and physically threatened by our broken society. That should tell you everything you need to know. [Ezra Klein Show]
This NYT podcast series on how fringe internet culture becomes mainstream — and how disinformation and conspiracy theories spread online — is worth your time. If you don’t know what Q-Anon is, you should listen to this because there are probably people in your life who are influenced by it. [Rabbit Hole]
Word Soup
I go down to the shore in the morning
and depending on the hour the waves
are rolling in or moving out,
and I say, oh, I am miserable
what shall—
what should I do? And the sea says
in its lovely voice:
Excuse me, I have work to do. —Mary Oliver
“Courage is rare. When you have it, use it.” —Ask Polly
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