Solitude

Have you ever seen the sun rise after a sleepless night? Have you ever wanted to believe in the chariot that pulls this star behind it, just so we can see the world we live in? Have you ever cried?

The dogs didn’t ever want to leave my side as soon as I rose up out of bed. They poked their nose against my hip as I boiled water for the coffee that would save me, thinking I was making something they could enjoy. When I made breakfast and sat down to enjoy it, they would come put their heads in my lap, waiting for an offering. They looked up at me like I was a god that would provide them the desires of their hearts, but really I was, at best, a deity that found small enjoyment from eating what they wanted while looking them in the eye. I gave them treats to make up for my sins.

The sun wasn’t risen enough for me to sit by the window or pull up a chair outside to read one of the dozen books I’ve started and never planned to finish. Sitting in the presence of the sunrise and not staring right into it seemed like a crime. It needed my full attention or nothing at all, that much I knew. Instead, I sat at the keyboard in the living room and tried to remember the chords I figured out from the piano lessons I never finished a million years ago. Half a million, actually.

I only knew enough to switch chords without finger movements in between, but they existed in my head. The music of the songs I knew floated around my mind as I sang at the top of my lungs, songs of sadness and pain and joy and love. I played and played the only four chords anyone cares about and hypnotized myself with feelings I have never known outside of the words someone else felt like saying. The keys were forgiving, they enjoyed being used even by someone as talentless as me.

As soon as my soul grew heavy with the weight of the world’s sorrow and contentment, I placed a shawl over the keys that had let me love them and moved on with my life, never knowing the next time I’ll have the chance to play again. The dogs were excited to see me get up from my melancholy only to be disappointed in the fact that I was making more food they couldn’t have. I am an unjust god and they loved me anyway. How terrible.

As I ate and thought of life, poetry flowed from my soul onto the pages of my journal. One after the other, I forgot what I wrote down knowing I’d be pleasantly surprised later. In my solitude, I found inspiration. In my melancholy, I found the whole world waiting to be known. This is why the artist is often thought of as a loner, a freak. There’s probably no other way to create what you were meant to create. What beauty can you make when you are in the presence and the company of the most spectacular pieces of art known to existence? When there are people ready to be with you, what time do you have to make anything else but love?