Solitude

Recently I've been reading, No Man Is an Island, by Thomas Merton. He was a Trappist Monk, so he knew a little about solitude. I like the sound of the word so I looked up the definition to set it in my mind, making sure I meant what he meant when he used the word. I feel certain he knew what the word meant and didn't just think he did. He wrote somewhere around seventy books. That's not really a big deal since there are people who write that many books and say nothing worth the life of a tree. Merton, on the other hand, had something to say that I think a tree might have been willing to sacrifice itself to help convey to others. Pardon me for digressing a bit here, but I love trees. It pains me to see a tree cut down, especially an old tree. Trees are patient and harmless. I'd like to say kind but it may make it sound to some as if I'm anthropomorphizing trees. Trees are not human. That's probably what makes them naturally harmless. They provide so much to us and ask so little in return. Another nonhuman aspect of their nature. The quality of the air we breath is increased because of trees. They stand there and watch us scurry about like the little idiots we are. We cut them down while they remain mute and patient until the last bit of life is taken from them. It's spring here. The trees are beginning to clothe themselves in green. I like to look at them. I like to listen to them. They have gentle voices. We share 70% identical DNA with oak trees. I don't know. It's just wild to think about that.

Solitude comes from the Latin solitudo, from solus 'alone.'  The dictionary defines solitude as the state or situation of being alone. Through the years I've heard many people complain about being lonely. Being lonely is different from being alone. Even the dictionary knows the difference, but since people don't usually read a dictionary, especially when they think they know the meaning of a word, I'm going to share with you the definition. Lonely is sad because one has no friends or company. When I think of solitude I don't feel the least bit sad. I feel exhilarated, uplifted, at peace and oddly, secure. After reading that one might wonder what kind of friends or company I've had in the past. Same as you've had probably. Some good, some not so much. Merton wrote in one of his Journals:

A Preference for the Chant of Frogs

Warmer. Rain in the night. Frogs again. At first the waterhole (four feet long at most) had one frog or two. Now they are a small nation, loud in the night. The innocent nation, chanting blissfully in praise of the spring rain. Last evening I pruned a few little trees--including the beeches I had planted.

Today I have to go down to see Fr. Vernon Robertson, who evidently wants me to get involved in something--and I will try not to. He has been pestering me to come to Louisville to give a talk at Bellarmine College. And this is confirming me in my resolution to keep out of all that.

Almost every day I have to write a letter to someone refusing an invitation to attend a conference, or a workshop, or to give talks on the contemplative life, or poetry, etc. I can see more and more clearly how for me this would be a sheer waste, a Pascalian diversion, participation in a common delusion. (For others, no: they have the grace and mission to go around talking.) For me what matters is silence, meditation--and writing: but writing is secondary. To willingly and deliberately abandon this to go out and talk would be stupidity--for me. And for others, retirement into my kind of solitude would be equally stupid. They could not do it--and I could not do what they do.

No one bothers me with invitations anymore, especially since I've found this place of solitude. It's palpable. I was reading the above passage from Merton's Journal to a friend. He said, "It sounds like you." I live like a monk. It's a wonderful life for me because I do it easily, happily, peacefully and even eagerly. I must go out to buy a part to fix a leak under the sink in the laundry room. It would take me less time to do it than it does to prepare myself for the excursion. Solitude is sweet.