But my week-plus of illness has been interesting from an almost sociological perspective. I live alone, and the cold (both the illness itself and the fact that it seems pretty contagious) has meant that I’ve had to cancel *all* social ties. I’ve basically spent the past week saying, “Four days since social contact. Five days since social contact,” and so on. I’ve also become more than usually self-sufficient. Family members have offered to bring me groceries, but the grocery store is only a block away, and I’ve been able to walk there, so I’ve told people I can get by on my own.

And I have been able to get by, but the solitude has got me thinking. There is so much written these days about the wonders of living alone, and some of this writing is (a) really good, and (b) long overdue. But weeks like this one make me realize how tough living alone can actually be. There hasn’t been anyone to bring me tea. No one to entertain me with tales of the wider world after I’ve spent the day in bed. No one to ration out cough drops when I’m on the verge of coughing up a lung. Instead, I’ve been relying on virtual company — on my email accounts, and (somewhat obsessively) on news articles online.

I’m not saying that there aren’t good things to living alone. Clearly, many people enjoy the peace and solitude such a situation can offer. But we have to recognize that not all people have chosen aloneness (I, for one, was basically kicked into it this past spring) and that living alone can be, at times, exceptionally difficult. This past week has felt like a solitary confinement experiment, and I haven’t enjoyed it. I’ve got things to do this coming week — meditation class, dinner with a friend — and I find myself hungry for companionship.

So this post is really going out to a select few: those who live alone, and who find themselves sick this winter. It’s lousy. (And a week spent alone can really remind you of lots of other periods of unchosen aloneness.) If you find yourself sick and on your own this winter, drink plenty of fluids, stay warm, and be really, really good to yourself. It will pass.

Is this just me? I think not. I think that loneliness, especially if it’s experienced on a long-term basis, really does sensitize you to suffering. And it involves this terrible vulnerability — you feel too much alone, too unguarded. And I think that sense of vulnerability leaves you uniquely attuned to people and creatures who’s vulnerability is being exploited & who can’t fend for themselves. This could mean street kids, or women involved in the sex trade, or whole families starving in Africa.

Do other people find this to be true? Do stories of pain feel like they’re aimed right at you? And is it one “domain” or many? In my case, I find I can’t read or watch animals-in-distress stories. The thought of watching a documentary like “The Cove” (about the dolphin slaughter) makes me hyperventilate. But I have read long stories about the sex trade and I find that, while they are disturbing, I can tolerate them.

What interests me about this “can’t look” phenomenon is that I think it provides me with a clue about how to start responding to my feelings of disconnection. Put simply, I have to start looking. I ripped a story out of a magazine last week about shark drownings, and it’s been sitting on my kitchen table ever since. I’ve now piled other things on top of it, but can see the photo (a man casting a net) peeking out from under a book. I intend to *read* this story. This may seem like a silly goal. Like, just read the story already! For others this may be a simple thing to do. For me, it isn’t.

I plan to study my reactions as I force myself to read things I normally avoid. (And it is mostly reading, since I no longer have a TV.) Perhaps the act of reading and learning won’t be as bruising as I expect it to be. Or maybe it will be. Either way, I’m going to start turning to the things I’m now studiously avoiding, all in the hopes that this act of what is essentially caring might make me feel more connected.

Let me elaborate. Here’s what I think *doesn’t* work. In just about any city, you can find a volunteer centre, and that centre will ask you about your general interests and then match you with a suitable organization. I have some experience with this form of mix-and-match volunteering, and in my experience it is pretty much a ticket to nowhere. If you’re lonely, you need a sense of connection, and it’s hard to feel connected to a non-profit or seniors’ centre that you have no real relationship with.

Here’s the sort of volunteering that has worked for me. In Newfoundland, there was a dog pound that was remarkably lackadaisical. You could show up any weekday between 12 and 4, walk as many dogs as you wanted, and could stay out for as long as you felt like. If you didn’t show up, it was no big deal–someone else would be there to take the dogs out. There were people around (other volunteers, the receptionists at the front desk) but it was not overly social. Most of my time was spent walking around a nearby lake, and doling out pats and praise.

I liked this volunteer opportunity because:

• it let me engage with something I deeply relate to and care about (ie., vulnerability and animals)
• it brought me into contact with like-minded others, but was not primarily social in its aims
• if I was feeling withdrawn, or having a bad day, I could skip it without throwing off anyone’s routine.

Now, I’m not saying that this situation was best for the dogs. In Toronto, where the pound is way more organized, you have to commit to a certain day & time, you have no choice in the dogs that you walk (problematic if you’re scared of certain breeds), and you don’t keep the dogs out for very long.

Probably the more structured Toronto approach is better for the canines (ie., all dogs get walked, there’s no favouritism, etc.) but that’s not my point. My point is that the mix of casualness, meaning, exercise and limited social contact was just right for my loneliness. And such volunteer gigs are hard to find.

So what I’m really saying, in what is turning into a long post, is that certain *types* of volunteer work are probably a good way to “reach out.” Not all types. Certainly not something you’ve just picked at random or been assigned to.

More on this to follow. Am still doing a lot of thinking re volunteering and reaching out. Just thought I would add some qualifying comments.

And, can I just say: It is January 7th and about 10 degrees celsius outside. This is totally weird. More on *this* to follow as well.

Was going to end 2011 with a retrospective of everything that’s happened to me this year, and then I thought, Why bother? Anyone who’s been reading this blog for a while knows about my losses, and most of them are losses I’d rather not relive.

Instead, I thought I’d write about a question that’s been running through my head for the last little while. Partly as a way of dealing with holiday loneliness, I’ve been following the news quite a lot, and have been struck by the stories coming out of the Middle East, especially the brave and innocent people protesting and dying in Syria.

In the midst of everything that is going on in the world–deadly protests, species extinction, day to day cruelties–does loneliness even matter? I think it does. I’m *not* saying that feeling lonely is the same thing as laying injured in the road in a middle eastern town. It’s not, and never will be.

But I don’t think a challenge needs to be life-threatening in order to be significant. I think the key (which I sometimes lose sight of) is perspective. I think we need to appreciate that loneliness can make life hard, and then use this knowledge as a way of building empathy for the sufferings that other people (and other species) are enduring. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that lonely people are sensitive. And, being sensitive, it can be easy to respond to the pain of the world by retreating. But I think the answer to loneliness has to involve *reaching out* and trying to connect with some of the hardships we see and read about.

I realize I’m being vague. Partly, this is because I’m more than mildly strung out after the holidays. I need the return of routine. And I hope I’m not sounding glum on New Year’s Eve. I don’t want this post to be read as a downer. What I am trying to get at is the notion that one of the ways we can respond to loneliness is through reaching out, either in the form of donations (if you can afford it), or letter writing, or taking part in a demonstration (and, if you live in a state that stands to be affected by the Keystone XL pipeline, this means you!).

We can use loneliness, in other words, as a way into the world. I’m not being mystical. I’m just saying that the awareness of hardship can sensitize us to the hardships that others face, and that this awareness can lead us to action. Think about it.

And, to everyone: it’s 12:05 pm by my clock in Toronto. Twelve hours to the end of the holidays. Twelve hours, people! Will write again in 2012. Best wishes to everyone on either side of the international date line.

E.

I realize that Simon’s Cat is probably old news to those of you in the UK, but he’s new to me. I love him! The link I’m sending is to “Double Trouble,” which is my favourite.

I hope the video does something to put a smile on your face as we head into a challenging holiday.

Best wishes,

Emily

This year is going to be the Stripped Down version of Christmas. For reasons that aren’t 100% clear to me, I am avoiding all decorations. My apartment looks like it’s mid-June (minus the air conditioner). There are no traces of Christmas. None. No tree. No ornaments. No new toys for the cat. No gingerbread men or candy canes or anything like that.

I’m keeping things bare because I just don’t want to be reminded of past Christmases, when I’d follow Danielle into the woods for a tree, shop carefully, dine with her family, etc. Am doing quite a lot these days to avoid thinking of all of that. Have been spending a lot of time in libraries, working on Book the Second, and that helps, but the library staff need a holiday as well, and soon the Quiet Time will be upon us.

Fortunately, I won’t be alone. I’ll be spending Christmas Eve with my family, and Christmas Day with a dear friend. But I’m feeling fairly solitary heading into the holidays, and I feel guilty about this. I *know* that many people will really be alone–truly alone–on the 24th and 25th. So I should feel grateful, and in many respects I do, but it is still hard.

Is there any time of year that is worse for loneliness than Christmas? In the past, I’ve said that summer is worse (so many indications that you’re supposed to be out cavorting and enjoying the sunshine) but I might, today, retract that statement. There is so much pressure to be happily embedded, no? And if you lack an easy sense of embeddedness, it’s hard not to start to feel as though you’re in some ways flawed.

So warm wishes to everyone out there as Christmas approaches. I will try to post again before the holidays. And if you are alone, or think you might be alone over Christmas, my thoughts are with you.

I can’t help or assuage feelings of loneliness that might present themselves this weekend, but I can recommend a great book — David Mitchell’s The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet, which is a lively, detailed epic set in 18th century Japan. Sometimes the best thing to do is to read, and to lose yourself in a rich, colourful, imaginary world where everyone is immediately available to you, and you to them.

These numbers struck me as shockingly high. I haven’t yet read the original study, so I’m commenting on a summary, but I have to wonder how the survey question was worded. For example, if someone asked me, “Do you sometimes have involved conversations with people who are not physically present?” my answer would be yes. But I don’t think of myself as having imaginary friends, and the thought that other people do, or might, intrigues me.

I have vivid memories of having an imaginary friend in childhood. This was a boy, named Randy (Randy??), and I remember him as having red hair. But after I turned about ten or so, Randy simply vanished, and no other imaginary friends emerged to take his place.

I wonder now if my loneliness would have been more bearable if I had created imaginary friends as an adult. I remember taking real comfort from Randy when I was about eight: I have distinct memories of the “two of us” building a fort out of sofa cushions. Perhaps I could have summoned up a similarly comforting sense of companionship as a solitary adult, in my thirties. But I don’t do that now, even though I live alone, and I don’t seem to have any propensity to do it.

I’ll follow up if I can locate the original Japanese article. Whether I track it down or not, I find the notion of adults having imaginary friends incredibly rich and intriguing, and somehow reassuring.

Many thanks to those of you who have written in the past few weeks to ask how I am doing. It has, obviously, been a quiet time for me. I’ve been doing a lot of reading, and thinking, and writing for myself, but not writing with the goal of publishing anything.

It has not been a bleak time. It has just been a very private and quiet time. I do keep a journal (I’m sort of obsessive about it) but I don’t keep what people call a “gratitude journal.” (A gratitude journal, as the name implies, is a book where you record daily or weekly the things that make you happy.) But I’ve noticed I’ve been keeping something of a gratitude journal in my head.

Here are the things that have put a smile on my face in recent weeks:

• Seeing small dogs in cute winter jackets
• Drinking too much tea (for the record, it’s Tetley Orange Pekoe)
• Taking the train to Ottawa and watching the landscape roll by
• Kicking my way through orange and yellow autumn leaves
• Having dinner with a friend I hadn’t seen in ages
• Reading. Reading. Reading. (Specifically recommended: Rin Tin Tin by Susan Orlean, and State of Wonder by Ann Patchett — both of these books are superb.)
• Toying with the idea of getting an 8 year old border collie
• Long talks with Hodgie
• Fiddling with notes for Book The Second

So it has certainly not been all bad. I think the change of seasons has helped enormously. The separation from D happened at the start of summer, and then summer hit and all that heat and humidity was just oppressive (and it had the visceral effect of reminding me I was no longer in cool, misty Newfoundland). Now that fall is here I feel as though I’ve made some progress.

I *will* make the effort to blog more. I like being in touch — it’s just been a strange and difficult season. More to follow….

I’m reviewing all of these animal comings-and-goings because I’m finding myself really missing animal companionship. I’ve started surfing websites (there are a lot of them in Toronto) about animal fostering, and I have fantasies about adopting a greyhound. I can’t, of course, actually do this, becuase I don’t know the first thing about domesticating a racetrack animal, and (more concretely) I don’t have a fenced yard.

But a lot of my attention lately is on animals. I notice dogs in the park; I notice cats sleeping on porches. I long for animal companionship as a way of responding to feelings of isolation. Hodge is a great cat — he’s incredibly loyal, and he’s been a trooper through all of these moves and changes — but he’s quite elderly, and spends a lot of time asleep.

So I might actually do it. I might foster a kitten. I think that, following major separation, major move, and major disruption, a little kitten might be just the ticket. Hodgie won’t like it, but he doesn’t get to make all the decisions in this house. I’ll write again with an update: there might be another new kitten in the house sooner rather than later….