Solitude

When I was younger I used to have fantasies about disappearing.  Not magically but realistically, disappearing like Richard Kimble, the character in the old tv series (and film) The Fugitive. I used to think it was a great thing he had going. He would just up and leave everything behind - no real possessions to speak of - and take off for the next town, the next promise of a new start. There was something about that idea, something so strong that I used to think I would do the same thing. After all, when you do so you leave behind all the accumulated worries that your life has become.  The other choice, and one that has similar appeal to me, is shutting myself away, like a hermit. But then, for all intents and purposes, I have done this. I live by myself in this place, a small apartment nestled in the back of a building, cuddled next to a green area and a wall, almost like a cave. If I don't use the phone no one knows I am here. No one calls unexpectedly - those days are long gone. You don't come here by accident or in passing. I like the idea. It is like being a monk and yet, anytime I wish, I can always step out among the living.

I can sit here and listen to the sounds of my city. Not too far away a group of people are sitting together on their porch, drinking and talking. I hear them every so often. The women are particularly loud, their voices emphatic in what is otherwise the silent evening. If not for them all I would hear would be the chirping or singing of birds, the whirring of insects, the occasional passing of cars. Their voices are loud, though, and sometimes strident. They cry out "Oh God!" or "Yeah, yeah, like that!!" with the rising inflections of schoolgirls and not women. I want to scream back at them, respond to their voices and embarrass them into silence. But I don't. I ignore them and soon the insignificance of what they are saying is matched by my attitude towards them.  I am, despite this enjoying my solitude.

I recently watched the film The Station Agent (2003). This film was more like something you would see from Europe or Asia, a simple film about people living their lives. That the main character is a dwarf is really incidental. It is really about a person who wishes to be left alone but life keeps intruding. Life keeps getting in his way.  This is what happens with solitude, quite often.  Solitude demands that we spend time to ourselves, isolated, able to think without interruption. But life intrudes, demands attention and forces us, sometimes unwillingly, sometimes needfully, out of the cave we place ourselves in.  It is not always such a bad thing, this intrusion, anymore than shutting oneself up is necessarily good. Balance is the key, I would guess.

There is a wonderful book of conversations between Thich Nhat Hanh and Daniel Berrigan called The Raft Is Not The Shore: Conversations Toward a Buddhist-Christian Awareness. The book is an incredible collection of conversations between the Buddhist monk and the Jesuit priest held in 1975, just after the Vietnam War had ended and Berrigan had been released from prison (for his involvement in burning draft cards in Catonsville, Maryland).  The conversations are stimulating, to say the least, and push one to think deeply about so many questions involving religion and spirituality, faith and commitment.

One of the comments I took away from this book is one made by Nhat Hanh. He says "In order to save the world, each of us has to build a pagoda." He goes on to explain more deeply what he meant.

"There were people who thought that I was urging them to build more pagodas so Buddhism would become a national religion. But this pagoda cannot be built by stones and sticks and things like that, because this pagoda is a sanctuary where you have a chance to be alone and to face yourself, the reality of yourself. If you don't have a pagoda like that to go into each day, several times each day, then you cannot protect the Eucharist, you cannot protect yourself, and you cannot protect the world from destruction." (The Raft Is Not The Shore, Orbis Books, 1975,1982)

  I think this idea, of having a sanctuary within oneself in order to contemplate who you are, is a powerful idea. In many respects we do need both the physical as well as the spiritual sanctuary. Sometimes we need that place that helps us to achieve that degree of self-reflection in which we can be honest about ourselves. And yet, at the same time, we need to be able to do this regardless of what location we are in. After all, life does not always afford us such places whenever we need or want them. Better to be able to use any place and delve within for discovery.  Much as Finbar McBride in The Station Agent finds his search for solitude constantly interrupted by the people of Newfoundland, New Jersey and yet he finds for himself a richer, more rewarding life and seems to find through these connections the very best kind of solitude, so, too, do we need to carry within us our own pagoda.

I accept this contradiction. This desire and enjoyment of the solitude of my cave and yet the understanding and need for contact with others. I am enriched by both. I hope it makes me a better person. I will hear the voices outside my window not as petty annoyances but as songs being sung. The song of humanity alive and buzzing.