I wrote a poem many years ago called, “Single, Childless and Living Alone.” I have yet to share the mixed emotions that are etched within its meter; it is just too close to the inner workings of my soul. But today I consider the meaning of being alone.
And of course I am not discussing being physically alone. We have all, at some point in our lives, experienced solitude of some type – even if it is only the solitude of the toilet within a house of six children, two adults and countless visitors. That was the solitude of my childhood. I could only be alone with my own thoughts in our single bathroom.
After fifty years, I finally realized the bathroom’s symbolic potency within my dreams after reading Gaston Bachelard’s The Poetics of Space. “Memories of the outside world will never have the same tonality as those of home and, but recalling these memories, we add to our store of dreams …”
And so the eternal search for a toilet within my dreams suddenly became meaning-full when I recalled how often I search within my life for the rare and often precious sliver of space or time just for me. And when I find this oasis, this pocket within my busyness, what do find nestle within?
I find myself, alone.
As an introvert, time alone is like a life giving elixir. It rejuvenates my souls and recharges me at all levels. I crave this solitude like a drug, like a junkie slapping my arm searching desperately for the vein to inject this glowing potion of quiet, calm and emptiness.
But deep within the darkness, swimming deep down within my fears and sorrows lives another kind of alone. Loneliness can be such a cruel mistress. She raises her head above the threshold of awareness and suddenly without warning I am gasping for air, clawing along on the edge, fighting to keep my head above water.
And that is where I discovered myself at the end of last week. After several glorious days of contentment, I was suddenly fighting against chains stretched taut around my heart. What happened? How did I end up here?
The melancholy lasted all weekend, till just as suddenly I remembered – I had watched a movie. The movie was Notes on a Scandal, starring Judi Dench. And in it was some of the most heart-breaking narrative of her as a desperately lonely unmarried ageing woman. And it was that narrative that had triggered me and, as I wrote in my journal, had literally stolen the joy right out of my mouth.
It is not the first time that something in a film touched me so deeply within my core. But it has been a long time since something snuck in past my defenses and sucker-punched me without my even knowing it had happened.
I have been very good at explicating sub-text and identifying misogynist and racist messages. But now, with me in my early fifties, I find that I am now more susceptible to messages about women and ageing.
And oh my gods did it hurt. It was gut-wrenching, soul-numbing sorrow upon sorrow, fear upon fear … and all that lives inside my darkness – oh my gods, I had no idea it was so huge.
So now I know where my work lies. I have discovered yet another frontier within me. It is the path of age. I have dipped my hands into it briefly from time to time, and now it beckons to me from beyond the land of dreams. I turn my steely gaze toward this land, not with strength or courage but with humility and surrender. I do not plan to give up, but I do plan to let go and release whatever is toxic within me. And claim back the ancient heritage of crone, the throne of the bearded woman and the narrow eyes of the waning moon.
And once again I walk the path of a shaman and witch into the unexplored territory of the next leg of my journey – a journey into my inner world and my journey into and through the worlds beyond me. My journey along the path of ageing.
Happy trails…
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Wish I could be there. Very well spoken.
Katrina,
I wish you all the blessings and power you need on your journey. Thank you for these words. It is good to remember that returning to work (and thus returning to grace) bring a chance for us all to rest and have joy.
Wishing you joy in the Work.
David
Dear Katrina- Thorn reposted your blog and happy am I. Your passion, always so immense, comes blowing out in these words. So akin to my own heart and soul that it makes me have a bittersweet smile.
The Storm is only now coming to the edges of our universe and yet it will sweep and consume all that is. In the end, our beautiful universe will be so much...more? Different? Complete? Who knows?
All I do know is my soul came here to witness and be part in this period. I cannot shrink from the work. I am here with you, fae sister!
Thought-provoking piece, Katrina. Thanks.
I don't know what to call myself either. In Pagandom, I've taken to referring to myself as a Witch at Large. In the interfaith world where I'm active, I call myself a Pagan. Sometimes I call myself an uppity woman or a Second Wave Feminist. I've never really thought to publicly identify myself by my sexuality, het woman, which is very "white bread" and old-fashioned. Not only het, but serially monogamous for the most part. It seems almost a liability these days to say you're het, but I am proudly and happily so. I tend towards intellectualism but only have a BA, which doesn't carry much weight, at least in public and professional worlds, no matter how much you've studied, trained, and can articulate, even teach.
My biological heritage is Irish, Dutch, French Huguenot, Euro-mongrel. My social heritage is Roman Catholic on one side and conservative Methodist, temperance-crusading, women's rights and education on the other, with distinct East Coast sensibilities, now mellowed by more than half a century living on the Left Coast. My maternal political heritage is conservative Republican (altho what my relatives might think of current trends in the GOP I cannot imagine, since they did have brains and they did think and they did have a social conscience), yet I am much farther left in my outlook than any elected official I know. My paternal political heritage is blue collar Democratic, except that my dad broke with his family on politics and allied with my mother's family's conservatism.
I'm a former hippie, a home-birth advocate, a home death and green burial advocate, an opponent of capital punishment and resorting to warfare to resolve humankind's differences. I support the right to conscious self-deliverance. I rejoice in any and all consensual expressions of love and eros. I'm a lover and a mom.
I have never missed voting in an election and I disrespect those who don't avail themselves of this hard-won right. (I have ancestors who fought the Brits in the American Revolution.) I support workers' rights. I recognize our interdependence on this planet, so could be called a greenie. I'm a committed environmentalist in my day-to-day life (in terms of eating locally grown food, expanding public transit, recycling, preserving open space and wildlife, opposing exploitation of natural resources [strip mining, oil-drilling, nuclear facilities, agribusiness, monocultures, clear-cutting timber, overuse of pesticides, genetic modification, etc.]) I want to make the city streets "safe for dancing," as my old friend Tony Serra said when he ran for mayor of SF on the Platypus Party ticket.
Well, you got me going there, my friend. Thought-provoking read, as I said. ;-)
xo,
Macha
Lovely azaleas!
[cough][gag][snort][sneeze]
Just lovely...
I know what you mean.
I feel you. There is too much bs- particularly when people decide that their temperament is tantamount to truthful and ignore everyone else.
I get irked by immature extroverts or closet introverts who ignore you REPEATEDLY and then pretend you're out of line for being upset by the time they can't pretend you didn't say anything anymore. I find that the same people will ignore you if you blow up right away, too, and that it's because they just don't think that honoring what you value is important to maintaining a relationship, or even worse: that you don't know what you value at all and that it's all a mind game for their pleasure or annoyance. Then they call you passive-aggressive, aggressive, moody, touchy and temperamental. I call them "not listening".