Just Last Night

Ann Waddell, Sacre Coeur Couple

Ellen Eagle wrote me that she'd found the work of Ann Waddell and the students she teaches (in Beijing), and was so enthralled she wrote Ann a fan note; I, in turn, was so enthralled I wrote Ann a fan note.  The photo above is from her blog, with the post:  "Seeing couples has made me a little sad lately...  It's good there are a number of things making me happy."

Reading last week's Sunday Times last night (how great that it lasts a whole week), I saw Sophia Coppola has a new movie, Somewhere. The review of Stephen Dorff's performance says:  "Without work to fill his days, Johnny is marooned on some inner desert island and has no idea how to get away....  When his exasperated ex suddenly dumps their 11-year-old daughter, Cleo, on him, he seems confounded.  But as he and Cleo spend time together, he rediscovers what it means to be responsible for someone else."

Also last night, I was listening to Sinead O'Connor's Theology (I prefer the London sessions) and reopened God's Silence, a book of Franz Wright's poems given to me by Justin Bigos over a year ago, which I still haven't finished.  Each poem is so full; I read some of it and become saturated, then the rest doesn't penetrate.  I reread and get maybe a line farther along then fill up again.  Some I can't seem to digest.  Something in them pushes on something in me very intimately and deeply; I'm being explained to myself in a new language.

The juxtapositions here, juxtaposed with changes in my family and friends, are asking me to check in with myself about my solitude, and whether or where or when it might become loneliness.  I spend most of my time outside the classroom alone, at least 75% of my waking hours.  I'm not lonely, with rare exceptions, but I am aware of an anticipatory loneliness.  I'm very aware of growing older.  Having God the overt subject of the music I was listening to and the poetry I was reading is so far from my ordinary experience it struck me, and made the question of earthly loneliness suggested in Ann's blog and the Somewhere write-up more poignant.  The role of work in my life is not so far from Johnny's.

While the number of things making me happy is substantial and the loneliness factor low, I'm not sure how I feel about growing old alone.  I love living alone - could imagine being in a committed relationship and still living alone - but am not sure I'll always want to be alone.  At 53 in New York City and not getting any younger, will I have the choice?