In modern society, solitude is suspect. Going to a movie alone attracts sympathy and stares. Sitting on a bench alone, scribbling in a notebook, makes onlookers uncomfortable, as if you're an undercover FBI agent taking down names. Dining alone is the ultimate transgression--smacking of isolation or mental illness or serial-killer-in-the-making.
Billy Collins reflects on the etiquette of eating dinner alone . . .
Dining Alone
by: Billy Collins
He who eats alone chokes alone.
---Arab saying
I would rather eat at the bar,
but such behavior is regarded
by professionals as a form of denial,
so here I am seated alone
at a table with a white tablecloth
attended by an elderly waiter with no name--
ideal conditions for dining alone
according to the connoisseurs of this minor talent.
I have brought neither book nor newspaper
since reading material is considered cheating.
Eating alone, they say, means eating alone,
not in the company of Montaigne
or the ever-engaging Nancy Mitford.
Nor do I keep glancing up as if waiting
for someone who inevitably fails to appear--
a sign of moral weakness
to those who take this practice seriously.
And the rewards?
I am thinking of an obvious one right now
as I take the time to contemplate
on my lifted fork a piece of trout with almond slices.
And I can enjoy swirling the wine in my glass
until it resembles a whirlpool
in a 19th-centruy painting of a ship foundering in a storm.
Then there are the looks of envy
from the fellow on the blind date
and the long-married couple facing each other in silence.
I pierced a buttered spear of asparagus
and wondered if the moon would be visible tonight,
but uncapping my pen was out of the question
for writing, too, is frowned upon
by the true champions of solitude.
All that would have to wait
until after I have walked home,
collar up, under the streetlights.
Not until I would hear the echo of the front door,
closing behind me could I record
in a marbled notebook--
like the ones I had as a schoolboy--
my observations about the art
of dining alone in the company of strangers.
It is Winter Solstice--the longest night of the year. The sun didn't rise until well past 8 a.m., and, by the time I left church at around 5 p.m. this evening, it was already getting dark.
A little while ago, I stood in my backyard, gazing up into the heavens. It's a clear, cold night--the kind that seems etched in glass. I didn't see any moon, but the stars were bright as pearls.
It's easy to feel isolated and alone on this day. Darkness has a way of making you feel like the first or last person on the planet. Solitude is all around. At the moment, everyone else in my house is asleep. My son isn't screaming at his online gaming friends. My puppy hasn't so much as moaned since she was put in her cage for the night and covered with blankets. And my wife surrendered to sleep about an hour ago.
I'm feeling slightly exhausted myself. (Nothing new there. I've been exhausted for about a month now.) My wife and I went Christmas shopping this afternoon. This year, we are trying as best as we can to shop local. Too many of the big chain stores and websites contributed to the campaign of the Felon in Chief. So we decided local artists, artisans, writers, book stores, and art galleries would get our money over, say, Walmart or Amazon. And it felt really good to know that we weren't helping with the downfall of democracy in this country. Yes, I know I'm only one person, and whether I buy my son socks at Walmart is not going to destroy the Walton family fortune. But that one solitary act of protest, if repeated hundreds of thousand of times, will make an impact. Collective solitude in action.
Tomorrow, days start getting longer, light returning gradually to my part of this planet. My hope is that the darkness that's ben sitting on my shoulders will gradually fade, as well. In the meantime, I embrace my solitude. Feel whatever emotion fills that space with me--sadness or anger or creativity or love. I know that I'm really not alone and never have been.
Poet Rainer Maria Rilke once wrote, "I hold this to be the highest task of a bond between two people: that each should stand guard over the solitude of the other."
Saint Marty is standing guard this dark night for all his disciples.
