Skip to main content

Solitude...and Last Week's Reading List


… it is all right to be alone, to want to be alone, to be alone and not lonely—even to be lonely at times
The Muse refused to smile… I brooded, wondering why I couldn’t find a single thing to write about. Not even my baby brother’s antics over the weekend could inspire me.  It wasn’t just writing. I found that I had little to say to my friends. The texts went unanswered and the phone calls were punctuated by awkward silences. There wasn’t even much to say to HIM, which is definitely weird because even when we run out of things to talk about, we never run out of things to argue over. Any tweets were just links to things I had read. No witty commentary to life…nothing.

Since I wasn’t the most pleasant company anyone could have, I kept to myself and read. In that short span of time I read ‘The Lilac Bus’ by Maeve Binchy. Reviewers will tell you that it’s a romance novel but it’s really a book about people, ordinary people who are much more that what meets the eye: the mean girl who doesn’t think that she’s mean and the woman who is not as dumb as everyone takes her to be. It’s an Irish book so I had an Irish accent in my head the whole time I was reading it. Reza says only I can do that.  

I also finally got round to reading ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’. I have wanted to read it since I saw it in a newspaper article about classics that are must-reads before one turns 20. ‘A Man Called Thursday’ was also part of the list. Awesome read by the way. I am sure you are wondering, ‘Why the running commentary about literature?’ To be frank, there’s no point to it.

Atticus, Scout and Jem Finch from 'To Kill a Mockingbird'
All I really set out to do was build a case for loners…or people who feel the need to go for certain lengths of time without unnecessary human contact…people who once in a while need ‘me-time’. This description should fit all persons, in general, but you will be surprised at the number of people who simply can’t function in ones. You see, we aren’t such terrible people.  Sometimes we just want to be left alone. Like Boo Radley.  Oh yes, I knew there was a reason why I mentioned ‘To kill a Mockingbird’. It’s an American classic about racism, justice, family and growing up in the South…but more importantly, it’s a story about two children who spend a whole chunk of their childhood trying to get their neighbor, Boo Radley, to get out of his house before they finally accept that being a loner is not such a terrible thing after all. You catch that and a few other life-changing, life lessons from the book.

So when I sit at a corner table alone, wearing a slightly amused expression and seeming content with life, leave me be. Sometimes all I need are my thoughts, my music and my books. But of course they don’t completely substitute human contact. Even I can’t spend life devoid of all human contact (and that’s saying a lot, being the awesome person that I am). After a dose of me-time I rejoin life. I call up one of two awesome people whom I have probably been neglecting, make plans to spend the weekend binge eating (minus the throwing up), watching movies and regaling each other with tales about the men in our lives.
Have an awesome weekend, be it lonesome or in the company of others. (I use the word ‘awesome’ too many times, right?)

Spend your free time the way you like, not the way you think you’re supposed to. Stay home on New Year’s Eve if that’s what makes you happy. Skip the committee meeting. Cross the street to avoid making aimless chitchat with random acquaintances. Read. Cook. Run. Write a story. –ditto 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Girl Code... Not Neccesarily in that Order.

"The only rule is don't be boring and dress cute wherever you go. Life is too short to blend in." Society can be such a drag. What, with all the unwritten, unsaid rules and codes. Guys have an elaborate ‘Bro Code’. In fact there’s a whole website . You will be surprised that Rule no. 1 of it is not the (in)famous ‘Bros before whores’. Girls have their own code too, though it’s not set in stone and varies among different groups of girls. The Girl code is especially tricky to girls like me who aren’t exactly programmed like other girls. So, I have a list of essential rules in the Girl Code. Some come with disclaimers and modifications. Some are universal while others are just stuff that my friends and I have come up with along the way. 1.        Should a Girl be critically injured, her Side-Girls are to never make jokes about it, unless the hurt Girl does first. I love my girlfriends…very much, but if said critical injury has risen as a result of a fall (wh

Of Doing Milk and Staying Young

Boredom inspires/ drives me to do the unthinkable... like texting him to say how I couldn’t stand pretending that I didn’t like him...or drinking a glass of milk. I do not DO milk. And no, I am not lactose intolerant. As Max in ‘2 Broke Girls’ aptly points out, “Poor people don’t just run out to buy anti-biotics. You man up, grow a pair, and stare germs in the face...booyah!” I may not be poor but I am definitely not rich. People in my economic bracket don’t get fancy diseases like eczema. We get rashes, and if you want to get all fancy then you will have to do with ‘allergies’. So, no, I am not lactose intolerant. Where I come from it’s just a plain, simple ‘I don’t drink milk.’ But here I am, with a now half empty glass of milk. (I hope you can detect the pessimism there or else my pun will have gone to waste) I suppose the ‘Do Milk, Stay Young’ campaign hasn’t gone to waste. All that sexual objectification of infants wasn’t in vain. “Sexual objectification?” you ask. Yes,

Fighting for my right to be wrong.

I feel as if our relationship has been progressing at an admirable rate... progressing enough for me not to just assume that someone somewhere is reading this, but to hope that this is so. Today has been a Monday, true to form. Murphy s law through and through. Anything that  could go wrong DID go wrong...but I don't want to bore you with the gory details. I do need to mention, though, that I was diagnosed with alarmingly high levels of typhoid fever. To be frank, I didn't feel THAT ill. I was simply mildly sick with a stomach ache and a head ache but the pharmacist wouldn't give me any meds until he had run some tests.Even after the diagnosis I still felt pretty amazing considering the shocked expression on the lab tech's face as he tries to make me understand how 'grave' my situation was. Dad wasn't as flippant about it as I was (His own face-to-face encounter with typhoid had confined him to bed for a week and he couldn't believe that my body was