on Solitude
In Vermont, my energy was devoted to driving through Bennington any weekend that I could. I didn’t do much else. The drive was filled with rolling greens, with hints of orange and red. After all, it was November. The temperature hit 45ºF and I drank Japanese wine. On certain couches, in certain houses, I felt quite held and warm. That was short-lived, though. I wondered if I would be missed when I left for college in January. Would they think about me when I was gone? Yet, the problem with thinking that is that if you’ve already left, you’ll truly never know if you’re missed. You can only trust the experience you leave behind. If it lives in the memory of others or is soaked into a space. I was ready to finally start school. Just to be able to say I was there, though.
I saw Cheshire, I saw Manchester. I saw Great Barrington, I saw North Adams. I walked through Amherst and ate ice cream with cookie dough chunks. I hiked up Mount Killington. I ate an apple at the top. I picked colorful corn. I ate bread. I made prank calls. I petted the cat. I got quite cold at night. I dressed up for Halloween. I petted the dog. I ate bread. I baked gluten-free bread. I ate gluten-free bread. I ate cinnamon raisin bread. I ate whole wheat sourdough levain bread. I ate semolina bread. I ate olive rosemary bread.
She brought her diary, her guitar, her copper earrings, and her tie-dye pants to our little temporary house. We played guitar together and wrote in our diaries at night. I talked to her for hours in those weeks before Christmas. It was Hannukah, actually, but it was just us in that house so we didn’t really celebrate. I got no presents. I gained weight from all the bread I ate. My pants were tight. We did our finals in that house and drove each other mad. She shared more pessimism than I ever thought imaginable, coming from her. She had just come back from her first semester at Bard, I hadn’t really started school yet. She hated capitalism and sometimes it felt like she resented me.
I got a letter from her last week. It was displeasing. She was not my best friend, I had come to understand. My mom said there was no such thing as soulmates.
The first day of school, the most I had talked to anyone was saying “thank you” when they held the door open for me. I cried in my stupid basement room the instant my parents left, staring at the white brick walls around me. For the first two weeks of school I ate every meal in my room alone. I picked up my dumb-ass “grab and go” and watched hours of Nathan For You. I felt as though I didn’t exist, and all I could do was walk for hours. I would leave my room midday and get home in the late evening. The air was fresh and the sky was a brilliant January blue. All I did was look at the blue sky, it was the only thing that mattered, that made me feel alive.
Bob Dylan and Jeff Tweedy are men of great power. This was the year that I felt their words lifting me. I learned to sing with them. I sang about heartbreak, loneliness, love, and seasonal change with them. It Ain’t Me Babe. If I Ever Was a Child. Don’t Think Twice, it's Alright. Mr. Tambourine Man. I Am Trying to Break Your Heart.
I got those command strips you buy in bulk the day before college starts in hopes of impressing people with all your pretty pictures, and they didn’t even work. I spent 6 days putting up all of my pictures on the wall, desperately trying to hold onto memories of people and places from the time before. And I spent 6 months running around my room frantically trying to catch pictures as they inevitably fell. Every single one of them at some point or another decided to let go, detach itself from the wall, and descend into the darkness. There was a certain point where I just let them fall.
I wrote in my diary “I have to let the world surround me or else I surround the world.” It was so hard to shake the feeling that I was better, older, more mature than the people around me. I had traveled and my unease came from the knowledge that there was more out there. I would ask, “is this all there is? Is there more out there? What’s the point of being here? I hate it here.”
By the time I had kissed the third guy that semester, I had felt more unfulfilled than ever. I was nauseous from the expectation-disappointment game. I wanted emotional validation so badly. Or maybe love, I don’t know.
I walked for 10 miles. I went to the Three Sisters Café. I ate pancakes. I was cold. I wore a bigger coat the next time. I went to the cemetery. I cried at the cemetery. I took sociology. I took geology. I didn’t like geology. I got a B in geology. I got left “on read”. I listened to Bob Dylan. I listened to Wilco. I listened to Animal Collective. I listened to Phoebe Bridgers. I cried when I listened to Phoebe Bridgers. I watched Gilmore Girls. I didn’t do much homework. I sat a lot in my desk chair. A girl told me she had sex with a gondalier. It got warmer in April. I sat on the green. I got overstimulated on the green. I wanted to go home. I went home earlier than expected.
The most creative thing on the hotel menu for dessert was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but, like, fancy. It was creamy and gooey and delicious, melt-in-your-mouth. The bread was sweet bread and there was all this extra stuff added to it to make it into a fancy dessert. I love when fancy restaurants are really creative with their dessert options. The next day I got a bagel with lox and an amazing goat cheese spread. I got to sit in the 90º Arizona weather and jump in the pool. I was still carrying weight from all the bread I’d eaten that fall.
I saw what it would be like to be in her shoes and go to Bard. They did a lot of drugs. Molly, poppers? I didn’t even know what a popper was. It gave them a head high I guess. No thank you.
I have never had such a good haircut. The woman gave my side bangs and layers and it framed my face so well. I realized I had to keep this hairstyle forever. I also decided I’m not going to cut my hair short again for a while. I just felt better with longer hair that could sort of get messy in a fun way. Like a rockstar. Like Courtney Barnett.
The summer was hot and then it rained a lot. And that was the pattern, it would kind of just go back and forth between extreme heat and extreme storms.
I went to the studio. I sat in the studio. I painted a big painting. I hated painting that painting. It was boring and exhausting. I got lightheaded while painting that big painting. I got a sore throat. I got a cough. I had phlegm. I had a stye. My stye lasted two weeks. It made my eye look huge and puffy. One person said I should put a warm compress on my stye. Another person offered a warm compress. Someone else said it would be wise to use a warm compress on my stye. I put a warm compress on my stye. It didn’t work. It took two weeks to go away.
I turned 20. I walked around. I went to a farm. I picked cherry tomatoes. I made salsa. I went to a club. I danced at a club. I left the club. I drove away for the weekend. I came back. I did that again. And again. I picked a rotten tomato. I wrote an essay. I got an 83. I put on mascara the night before I left. I got the fuck out of there. I saw the sky turn pink and slept deeply in my childhood bed.
The world is slow. The world is mine. I dive deep into the ocean and the sun glistens warm on the water. The ocean cleans my skin. Time is quiet and my best friends are here with me. We hike through the Green Mountains and jump into bodies of water. We eat Annie’s Mac and Cheese and we sleep under the stars. We think about how we are just one speck in this universe. I’m on top of a mountain and I’m at the edge of the ocean all at once. Music melts into my ears with a softer cadence. It moves my body through space. It brings me peace. I delete Tinder once and for all. I drive through rolling greens and cry in the car.
All that was pent up in me, the year full of heartbreak, of disappointment, of a deep set loneliness, it all flows out of me. And it all feels so beautiful. It’s September For Better. I settle into the couch until it eats me up. Until the couch and I become one. I cry for the ones I don’t know anymore, the ones that have gone silent. This year was one of sitting alone, of solitude. Of hurting. Of understanding. Of letting go. Of driving somewhere.
I’m here. I’m alive. I’m coughing up the toxins and shaking off the dust. I’m shimmying down and shaking out.