DOING THINGS ALONE IN A WORLD WHERE BEING ALONE IS CONSIDERED LONELINESS

when I was younger I was in a play called ‘The Wind Moves’. I had no experience acting -- no experience with any sort of public performance whatsoever – but the description given to me through a friend sounded interesting and so I joined the throngs of weary strangers silhouetted under the streetlights, joined together in a low cloud full of cigarette smoke and the soft murmurings that occur when strangers assemble. I suppose looking back on it now that I was alone even then, standing impatiently under the round eyes of the street lamps as the small crowd slowly inched forward towards the check-in stations that were just inside the doors.
When you reached the back of the line there was a man wearing a green baseball cap handing out brochures that gave a brief description of every role available to the public. As I read over the names of the characters I looked around, wondering if anyone else had noticed the strange names that filled the piece of paper in all of our hands. “The Devil” and “The Dealer”; “Hammerfall” and “Henry Day”; “Tulip” and “Gatekeeper”.
‘What the hell kind of play is this,’ I had asked.
A black man with a leering eye that seemed as though it constantly misunderstood something turned back and snickered at me.
‘You don’t know, man?’
‘No.’
‘Man,’ he said. ‘It’s a play about good and evil, about the end of time and the beginning of time.’ He nodded his head, agreeing with himself. ‘This the first time Hartford Stage done something like this.’
Leering Eye and I both went on to get parts – I was a young cocaine addict called ‘Fresh’ and he became ‘the Black Angel of Death’ – but throughout our 5 night tenure as ‘actors’ we rarely saw each other and had no scenes together. My character was one of the only few who survived the ordeals of the middle act, and so therefore our characters never met. But in between scenes some of the cast would collect in an old side balcony that was unused for the audience, and it was here that the Leering Eye told me something very interesting.
‘I’ll tell you something, young man.’ He whispered like a mouse sneaking underneath the kitchen door while the cat slept quietly. ‘You gotta go see a play alone.’
‘Alone?’
‘With no interruptions, man, no friends distracting you … you just experience shit different when you by yourself.’
After the last night of the play, I never saw him again, but I did take his advice. A few weeks later I woke up at 4 in the morning and drove down the haze littered highway into downtown Hartford and soon I was on a bus bound for Manhattan. The play I saw was called ‘In the Last Car’, and it was about a kidnapping and Stockholm syndrome, and it was in a claustrophobic little theater where the heat and the perfume swirled together all around like an aerial sentry around an awestruck audience.
Leering Eye had been right – it was different when you were alone, it was another thing entirely. I’d laid out my net and caught every detail, held onto every thematic suggestion and heard every word spoke, understanding it all, missing none of it.
Since ‘In the Last Car’, it’s become somewhat of a trend for me to traverse the entertainment world all my lonesome. I turn vagabond whenever a favorite band releases a new album, disappearing for a few hours to understand alone the messages that cannot be conveyed when companions are busily blabbing in your ear.
Most people that I’ve talked to don’t do this.
My friends Rooney and Swimmer went off like ballistic missiles, spearheads of smoke skyrocketing in every direction as they furiously argued that only losers go places alone.
“Only losers do that shit,” said Swimmer. “How the fuck you gonna go eat a meal alone? You’re 21 years old, man. Talking about doing shit like some old lonely man, by himself at the counter of the diner.”
I’ve eaten alone at the counter of a diner, sometimes with a book in hand and sometimes with nothing but late night patience and a need to be somewhere other than my apartment. It’s not so bad.
There’s snags and exceptions to every rule, and this rule of self is no different. My friend Goose got angry when I suggested that he go see Nine Inch Nails by himself. When I went alone to watch Black Swan in the theater – not knowing it was filled with lesbian crotch diving and weird masturbation scenes – I sank down very low in my seat, certain that the packed crowd around me thought I was some desperate pervert come to kick his rocks off.
But sometimes you just need to be alone.
For perspective, for those quiet things that come like silent stars appearing with dusk, no voices or opinions to sway us in our thoughts. It’s not healthy to be consistently alone, traveling like some wanderer down old roads, but sometimes there is no other cure to the manic chanting of this world.
Most people I’ve met, when confronted with the possibility of being alone, react with a sick sneer and shocked scoff, as if to say ‘I’m too good for that, I couldn’t be seen out at the movies, or in a bookstore reading, or surrounded by people who are together while I’m by myself.’
But if we are not comfortable in our own skin, if we cannot handle ourselves, how will we ever be able to give anything to anyone else? If we do not know ourselves, taking to time to wash our spirits, enjoy our own company, how will we ever love?