Solitary..

In my solitude, as I am forced to face this gaping wound that was once an expedition, as I tread far away from the city’s lights, where I once envisioned my home, where I might have stayed quiet, there is a journey that is as far from conventional as one can be, where over the years of being vagabond and of changing jobs, I have found my growth amidst the flitting of fading dreams.

I have learned to gather up my whole self and give it to others. I have swung between falling in love and falling out of love because learning to love is like studying the contours of your heart with every new relationship. But somewhere between the romance of love’s moment and the fantasy of expectations, somewhere between the ecstasy of holding hands and the ache of staring at empty sleeping spaces I miss the person I was years ago, before I had to afford anybody the courtesy of my regard. I miss that person who was courageous enough to love.

Once I imagined a life tied to a particular city, reliant on a scene forever in flux, full of openings and evenings, and serendipitous encounters, and vibrant works and ruminations to absorb. But over time, so did my preferences, shifting towards a life that offered a more natural, freed from the churning cacophony of the city.

I pared away shrinking pieces of myself with every step I took, shedding many layers of what society expected, what I felt obligated to provide until very little of who I was was left: that inner kernel of core identity. I had to drop many expectations until I was left with my true self.

Yet, in the loneliness, sometimes the whispers of doubt and insecurity would begin to creep in and I would feel the suffocating embrace of fear that would make me question if I was even alright. Almost as intense as the high would be the low, and although there would be a definite adrenaline rush that came along with this state, it was also a constant reminder of impermanence and instability. One day I would be up, and the next would be just as low. At that point, if I didn’t cry out of sheer loneliness, I would cry from boredom. There was nothing to look forward to.

However, at times in the solitude, the pause and the suspense, doubts and fears tiptoed out of the closet, and the insecurities whispered me away from the protective embrace of my cat before they came pouring in powerful and choking streams. The absence of steady footing became my companion, and there was certainly nothing steady about me. My cat purred some more. Patient, he made purring a habit.
He’s been my companion since the pandemic, bringing me back to the ‘now’ with his calm. My routine involves him, and a job that pays the bills. I feel anchored in this life.

Yet within this new regularity, there is a tension: a yearning for the company of friends that exists alongside a hankering for solitude. It is a fine line, a duet, between our need to engage with others and the need to reflect and to be still.

I have created a holy haven where I am accepted for who I am, where I am alone with myself, not treated like a madman, and I am OK. It is an inner sanctuary, a safe space from the here and now reality of bossiness and thunderstorms.
My books have been my only constant companions amid so much solitude. And being in such a little disrupted world they couldn’t get any smaller, they could only get bigger and bigger, so now when I want to speak another language, I speak literature. My books have become worlds inside my own world; they are my window to the world out there.

And, as a classic old-school rock tune blasts from the Tv, and I begin to innocently sing along, nostalgic and excited, while youthful memories start to toss and tumble throughout my mind, watching while visions of the past burst forth into lovely rhythmic tones and expressions, I am reminded once again of the awesome power of music and how, given the right medium to broadcast it, of all things we can own or experience, music is simultaneously the very best of the past and the ritziest treasure chest of the future.
And as I listen to the ageing rockers play old songs from their generation, I enjoy reliving my youth through the nostalgia of music, because soon enough I will be returning home. Each note gives me the sense, whether real or admired in my mind, that I can rejoin the glory of my youth.

Perhaps, I began this long retreat from the bustling limitations of the city not to seek peace without, but rather in the quiet places I learned to carve out for myself. And, as I burrow further down the long road I am travelling, I take some comfort in the thought that in whatever I am chained the longest, there’s still a space where I can stand with my head up, unchained and free; a space I had to construct myself from old songs and encumbrances.