A Heart in Solitude

“Love consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other.” -Rainer Maria Rilke

Over the last year, I have fallen in love with the poetry of Rilke. It is deeply spiritual, and filled with a longing for wholeness and for synchronicity. The poems question in ultimate proportions. It is epic work. I just eat that stuff up for breakfast. 

His work was introduced to me at a time last year when I was grieving, and his words breathed wisdom and compassion into a difficult experience. Rilke is a four on the enneagram, like I am, and his poetry fosters courage in the reader to authentically walk through the emotional realities of life, painful though at times they will be. 

Recently, I have been navigating through Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet, and have been moved by Rilke’s concept of solitude and Rilke’s challenge for the young poet to hold space for growing solitude. Rather than merely being alone, Rilke describes solitude as a condition of willingly being misunderstood by those around you. To negate solitude is to find the easiest way out of being misunderstood. To escape that loneliness entirely is to abandon the person you are for someone others can digest. 

Rilke dreams of a world in which love happens between people protecting one another’s solitude- protecting each other’s sacred, singular, individual journey of mental, emotional, spiritual and physical growth. A world where we don’t trade who we are becoming out of fear of losing connection.

So many questions arose when I considered this. 

How often have I abandoned being misunderstood for something momentary? How often have I so feared losing connection that I nod in dazed and reluctant agreement? How often have I lied to fit a mold that I cannot?

And more questions.

Okay, Rilke, what honestly do people do with their loneliness, then? Loneliness sucks. Being misunderstood all the time sucks. How do I make sure not to get overwhelmed in my loneliness? 

And some more.

What about community? 

What about my friends and family and my boyfriend and the people I love? 

How do I keep from shutting people out?

How am I supposed to learn from the world if I’m busy with solitude? 

Isn’t that disengagement? 

How do I stay open to being wrong? 

How do I keep pride from getting in the way? 

The fear runs wild.

These questions come forward, as does a tightness in my throat and a twisting in my chest. 

The fear runs wild, and wild, and wild, and wild, until fear is called by its name, and questions are seen as simply questions, nothing more or less, and fear runs free. 

 

*This is the part where I tell you that I am writing this piece for myself, because I am not very good at solitude. I’ve told myself a lot of stories about solitude, lots of which, you are getting a glimpse of (ie. the questions above), and I suppose this is me doing some untangling for myself. Thanks for being a part.*

 

So here’s what I don’t think solitude is (on a good day):

I don’t think solitude is disengagement, avoidance, shutting down, isolation, running away or a lack of community. Yes, I think solitude leads to physical aloneness at times, and certainly comes with loneliness, but the beauty and heartbreak is that I can be engaged and be lonely. I can be present and lonely. I can be in a room full of my dearest friends and be profoundly lonely. I can be loved tremendously and still lonely… and still know how loved I am. 

I hope that anyone who has ever felt lonely, even in lovely places, knows that they’re not on their own in that experience. Perhaps, by willingly being misunderstood, they are on the noblest path of their lives. For me and my artist friends, this choice to pursue solitude seems to be coming to us all in some form. I have seen it take shape in myself and my dear, close people in the past several months in beautiful and difficult ways. 

Solitude seems to me to be an intention towards, rather than retreat from. The solitude Rilke is talking about is something which I can take action about in my mind and body. I can go be with a whole crowd of people, or five friends, or my boyfriend, or be alone. None of these are necessarily indicative of the space I maintain for solitude. The question to consider instead is: Why am I here, in this space? Will I sacrifice some core part of me in this space? Am I willing to be misunderstood? Will I know that is not the end-all, be-all?

I seek to practice this in the coming season of my life. I have at times known what it meant to isolate myself or to run away, but I am not well practiced in willingly being misunderstood. I am not well practiced in what Rilke calls solitude.

I have blamed others to keep from being misunderstood. I have called myself straight when I was gay. I have called myself an ally when I was standing by in silence. I have said, “Yeah, I am vulnerable. Brene Brown 2020,” and lied, hiding myself, in the same sentence.  

I have been trying to consider, based on Rilke’s definition of solitude as a condition of being willingly misunderstood by those around you- what I think allowing solitude into my life entails. Here’s a shot. 

-Connection: To the richness of my breath after I think something or feel something that confuses the heck out of me, but remember I’m still breathing. I remember that air is literally being pushed into my body, and my created and creative body knows exactly what to do. I am the Created connected to the Creator, and this brings me safety. 

-Compassion: For the voices in my head that need the space to be heard, no matter how ugly I think they are. In solitude, there is that space. Compassion moves those voices. (If anyone has seen Frozen 2, I would like to point you in the direction of the flaming salamander who ends up being the most adorable creature in the movie.)

-Curiosity: Here, there is room for questions, because there is no one to merge to, no one to show off to, no one to even make total sense to. So I ask that question. What was I super certain about again? Curiosity means I am willing to be wrong, because I am safe here.

-Something bigger than me: A paradox, sure, but as soon as I start to recognize my breath moving through my body, an old story or lie about myself re-emerging- there is profound space opening for things that matter in the world. I can love my people better, I can hold myself accountable to social justice and to experiencing anger and going through mourning and bearing humility- things which begin to have more space to be held, to be known, to be loved within us. 

Solitude is the preparation of myself before I step boldly into a conversation of importance. Solitude is the preparation before you take on a character, or the wrestling I do before I post a blog. Solitude is being in nature alone and solitude is listening to someone you love say something you completely disagree with. Solitude is admitting, I don’t know. Solitude involves loneliness and it leads to deeper connection. It is selfish and it is not. It is failing in an ugly, public way and then being willing to take tiny, almost invisible steps forward again.

What if the embrace of solitude is the way we know that we are not alone? Because even in disagreement, even misunderstanding, even when repairs must be made, we find that others come close. The people who will love us lean in. They want to know more. 

I love many people who actively embrace solitude and who embody it nobly. They affect me, they change me, and they point me to my solitude. As my heart beats out of synchronization longer still, I move through my fear and some place to connection.

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Still Synchronizing