#138 Making a Map of Loneliness
"being hungry when everyone around you is readying for a feast" (Olivia Laing)
“Loneliness doesn’t necessarily require physical solitude, but rather an absence or paucity of connection, closeness, kinship: an inability, for one reason or another, to find as much intimacy as is desired.”
Olivia Laing, The Lonely City
Dearest,
Nikhila, who attended one of Nook’s previous workshops, suggested that we do a session on Handling Loneliness As An Adult.
And that’s what we did yesterday.
Making a Map of Loneliness isn’t easy. There is so much to unpack and understand. You need to be patient with the lonely beating of the heart. And you have to have the courage to hold your own hand through the maze.
I am so glad we did this with a group of the most amazing participants, each so kind and so gentle.
We created metaphors for loneliness, because we have noticed that anything that is difficult to understand and spell out is easier to access by comparing it to something else.
Some of the metaphors I remember include — an odd number of cigarette butts in the ashtray, an extra chair in my room piled with books, the unsettling edge of a glittery sweater, new door paint taking root in my nose, a door left ajar in a way that you can look inside but can’t enter, a bowl of cereal on a Monday, an unwelcome guest who overstays their welcome - comes and goes, or stays with you forever, an emotion as demanding as connectedness! Uff 💗
As you can imagine, we all ended up crying, sharing things we otherwise may not be comfortable sharing, and we created poems that were so raw and stunning.
Here’s to many more sessions of human magic!
Some verses:
#1 Excerpt from Bryant Park at Dusk BY GEOFFREY BROCK
I’m alone in a crowd—e pluribus plures.
Far from a family I miss.
I’d almost say I’m lonely,
but lonely Is worse, I recall, than this.
Loneliness is a genuine poverty.
I’m like a man who is flush
But forgot his wallet on the nightstand
When he left for work in a rush,
And now must go without food and coffee
For a few hours more than he’d wish.
That’s all. He still has a wallet. It’s bulging.
It floats through his brain like a fish...
#2 Things by Lisel Mueller
What happened is, we grew lonely
living among the things,
so we gave the clock a face,
the chair a back,
the table four stout legs
which will never suffer fatigue.
We fitted our shoes with tongues
as smooth as our own
and hung tongues inside bells
so we could listen
to their emotional language,
and because we loved graceful profiles
the pitcher received a lip,
the bottle a long, slender neck.
Even what was beyond us
was recast in our image;
we gave the country a heart,
the storm an eye,
the cave a mouth
so we could pass into safety.
A playlist I made for the workshop:
Feed yourself:
Something to go hmmm:
I recently attended a workshop on Real Listening. And I will share insights from there with you in the next edition!
Until then,
Sending love and laughter!
I am having a Vishal Bhardwaj fest of my own. I only recently watched Maqbool as well!
A glimpse from the workshop:
Dedicating this edition to Matthew Perry who taught me how to hold on to laughter even in the toughest phases of my life.
Wondering how you can support me?
You can contribute via GPay or UPI and show The Nook some love here: riya.roy6@axisbank
or,
See you next Sunday,
Love, Riya
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