Solitary Pleasures

Alone, alone, Oh! We have been warned about solitary vices. Have solitary pleasures ever been adequately praised? Do many people know they exist?

-JESSAMYN WEST

Remember, once upon a time, when we all knew how to play?We're going to have to travel back to when we were younger to look for clues. Did you love to play alone when you were ten? What were your favorite extra-curricular activities in high school and during college? Nothing in our past lives is wasted. Nothing that once made us feel happy and fulfilled is ever lost. There's a golden thread that runs through each of our lives. We just need to rediscover this thread before the joy of living completely unravels.

Why not have a brainstorming session on paper to excavate your buried bliss?Write out a quick list often solitary pleasures. Don't give this a lot of thought, but don't be dismayed if it takes you a few minutes to come up with something.

Need some help? Well, what was your favorite childhood game? Your favorite sport? Your favorite movie as a kid? Your favorite book? Comic strip? Your favorite singer or musical group? What was the best time you ever had as a youngster? As a teenager? As an adult? Can you remember? Can you re-create the memory?

If you could instantly acquire three additional skills, what would they be--playing the piano? figure skating? taking really great photographs? What three outrageous things would you try if no one knew about it¬belly dancing? clowning? hot-air ballooning? What three daring things sound intriguing, even if you'd probably never attempt them-stand-up comedy? mountain climbing? scuba diving? What three all-expenses-paid vacations appeal to you-an archeological dig in Egypt? a ride on the Orient Express? a visit to the Paris haute couture collections? Do you like to work with your hands-needlecraft? bookbinding? gardening? Or does the visual appeal to you-framing pictures? working in stained glass? creating shadow boxes?

Get the idea? There's a fabulous world out there just waiting to be explored. We simply have to be willing to experiment.

A hobby affords us a marvelous opportunity to awaken our natural talents. It does require a little bit of effort. First of all we have to figure out what we'd like to do to shake the doldrums. Then we have to carve out time to do it. Alice James, the sister of Henry and William James, believed that in life, "Truly nothing is to be expected but the unexpected." By seeking and finding a solitary pleasure that would make you jump out of the bed each morning to pursue it, you'll discover just how right she was.

The Importance of Solitude

If women were 'convinced that a day or an hour if solitude was a reasonable ambition, they would find a way attaining it. As it is, they feel so unjustified in their demand that they are to make the attempt.


-ANNE MORROW LINDBERGH

I am convinced that when the end of the world comes it will arrive not as two clashing armies on the brink but as a "last straw" : the fax that unravels six months' work in a single sentence, the telephone call that sends us reeling across the room, the seemingly innocent request to perform yet another task. Can we attend one more meeting? Write an additional memo before we leave the office? Bake another batch of cookies? Drive an extra car pool trip this week? Suddenly, without warning, women will rush screaming into the night, leaving men and children shaking their heads in amazement wondering if it was something they said. Always remember, Greta Garbo never declared she wanted to be alone. She said: "I want to be lift alone." There is a significant difference.

I believe that it's essential for busy women, by which I mean all of us, to pause a moment-this moment-to reconsider the entire subject of solitude. Too many of us approach time alone as if it were a frivolous, expend¬able luxury rather than a creative necessity. Why should this be so?

Could it be that by shortchanging ourselves, the only thing impoverished is our inner life? And after all, if the lack doesn't show on the surface, if we can pull it off one more time with smoke and mirrors, why, then, of course it doesn't count. Or does it?

"Certain springs are tapped only when we are alone. The artist knows he must be alone to create; the writer, to work out his thoughts; the musician to compose; the saint, to pray. But women need solitude in order to find again the true essence of themselves," Anne Morrow Lindbergh urges us to remember. "The problem is not entirely in finding the room of one's own, the time alone, difficult and necessary as this is. The problem is more how to still the soul in the midst of its activities. In fact the problem is how to feed the soul.