Let's start it with this shiznit.
lone·ly (l
n
l
)adj. lone·li·er, lone·li·est
1.
a. Without companions; lone.
b. Characterized by aloneness; solitary.
2. Unfrequented by people; desolate: a lonely crossroads.
3.
a. Dejected by the awareness of being alone. See Synonyms at alone.
b. Producing such dejection: the loneliest night of the week.
loneli·ly adv.
li·ly adv.loneli·ness n.
li·ness n.The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2003. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
And now, for the people's definitions.Leave it to my wonderful father to be the first to respond to submissions for the site. Not only did he send the most amazing song from the most amazing movie (and yes, he owns the soundtrack...coolest dad ever), but he wrote this, which breaks my heart a little bit:
Post #1
Hi Petunia,
Loneliness is a tough thing and it seems to be more problematic around the holidays. I know that I've had a few that have been difficult. Once, when I was living in England the first time, before I met your mom, I got really sick. Rick and I had been sharing a room but he had left for the US to take care of his draft problems. So, I was very sick in this room, (no bed, I was sleeping on the floor in a sleeping bag and on a camping mat) and spent several days with no one checking in on me, no one bringing food or water, no phone near by and thinking, "There are people all around the world who die just like this, all alone with no one around them who cares." Of course I wasn't really in any danger of dying, but I had become aware of a situation that is a reality for many in this world. It was one of those transcendent moments where you step out and have a small taste of the impersonal and unforgiving. It made me realize the importance of developing and maintaining relationships. (Then he wrote some other stuff that is of no relevance to you, but he did attach the song below "It's kind of sirry, but not rirry")......Lots of love,
Dad
Top That Yo!
I didn't mean to set the precedent quite so high I guess, but still.
We all know that feelings and phases come in waves. Seasons, weather, time, and location can all play a factor that either adds or detracts from an inner feeling or situation. No matter where or who you are, sometimes the universe gets in the way. That's how I feel a bit about the next one, written by a very good friend:
Post #2
January and June and December
It always seems to start in June, as a city known for its solitude gives way to a brief moment of communal optimism. The debilitating grey muscled aside by the optimistic blue. Rains that melt away the spirit yield to invigorating sunshine. Mold and mildew acquiesce to desiccated dirt and the mellow kiss of parched air.
Each Spring and Summer, as the city’s moths emerge from their cocoons of comfortable seclusion, I am January and June and December. In Autumn we prepare for our Winter, where we find common ground in our solitude, but I am January and June and December.
As the days grow longer, neighbors frolic in fountains and on street corners and on rooftop decks with a vast array of friends sharing superficial bonds. Lovers stroll hand-in-hand, apparently content in their own company, a shared privacy. Families of tourists, flocks of tourists, armies of tourists descend upon my corner of the world, mouths agape at third-rate destinations, all bonding in shared adventure. As they share, I am January and June and December.
For me in January and June and December, it’s the corner bar stool. The desolate mid-afternoon movie theatre. The quiet early morning walk. The loitering stroll through glass and steel jungles. The patient worship at the altar of unnecessary capitalism. The longing gaze at the passage of time en route to the cyclic Autumn.
The desperate, paradoxical search to share my well-practiced three decades of January and June and December loneliness.
Stunning.
Do you remember The Motels? They did that amazing song in the 80's "Suddenly Last Summer". Well, they also sang this. A strange video. Keep your eye out for the weird guy with the hat and thin mustache gazing from afar. And her love interest? Does he bite her lip or something? Awesome video, being lonely at da swankiest bar in town I guess. The bartender gives her like 3 cocktails all montage style!
Post #3
I have met a lovely person here in New York City. He sent me this. At first I was like, what? And then I started to think about it and I was like oh. And then I was like what? again. Yeah, think about it. Naughty, naughty. Kind of dark....which is kind of how I roll. Here it is:
Post #4
Against the blankness where sky should be, naked branches tremble and extend, grasping for and retreating from a wind that does not stop. The movement is repeated with the rhythm of a dance, seen and unseen, outside his window. Moving past them when eyes open, he loses them as they close at their own cadence. Supine, he struggles. The water at the bottom of the vase on his desk has begun to yellow. Stacks of magazines on the floor sleep under a settling of dust. His discarded sweater, a gift he no longer remembers receiving, lies crumpled at the foot of his bed. Beneath the windowsill, the whisper of the radiator up into the flat light gives off the only sound. In this cluttered stillness, his bare shoulder provides the only movement. The hammer of his desire continues down his arm; its pull contorts the muscles of his face. His eyes close more firmly than before. “Look, its dead.” Her mothers back has turned. On the concrete below, a girl has plucked a slick leaf from the crack beneath her boot and, with a shiver, sneaks it into her pocket. Overhead, the branch that once held it bends again, reaching with knotty fingers.
-Ryan J Chassee, New York City
Makes me think of images such as this, hopefully he agrees.
Another friend from Seattle sent this speech from the always well-read, well-spoken, well, amazing! Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I am very compelled by the idea that a lonely path can sometimes be political or not even that, but the right thing to do in the face of so much ambivalence. Lonely isn't just about physically being alone or a matter of love, it's also about standing out and being isolated from the masses. The speech speaks for itself and she (my friend) had this to say on the matter:
Post #5
To me, the following is a haunting and admirable stance to take. It is also, I would imagine a lonely journey:
So Precious That You Will Die For It
If you have never found something so dear and so precious to you that you will die for it, then you aren’t fit to live. You may be thirty-eight years old, as I happen to be, and one day, some great opportunity stands before you and calls upon you to stand up for some great principle, some great issue, some great cause. And you refuse to do it because you are afraid. You refuse to do it because you want to live longer. You’re afraid that you will lose your job, or you are afraid that you will be criticized or that you will lose your popularity, or you’re afraid that somebody will stab you or shoot at you or bomb your house. So you refuse to take the stand. Well, you may go on and live until you are ninety, but you are just as dead at thirty-eight as you would be at ninety. And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit. You died when you refused to stand up for right. You died when you refused to stand up for truth. You died when you refused to stand up for justice…
-- From a sermon by Martin Luther King, Jr., at Ebenezer Baptist Church, November 5, 1967, five months before his assassination.
-Sent by the lovely Mrs. Jennifer Haupt Seattle, WA
And now something from mi mare. ummm. my mother. I suck at French. She wrote this to me as an e-mail a while back and it is obviously suitable for this topic, but much more sentimental when you think of the context of a lonely young lass in NYC getting a lil' ol' e-mail from her mum in the morning that says this:
Post #6
When I lay in bed in the middle of the night I write the most perfect letters to you.
They say exactly the right thing in exactly the right way.
They make the connection between us fit like a glove.
But the night letters disappear when the morning comes and perfection is lost in the light of the day.
(Just so you know, I wrote this back to her: "that's okay, I get them anyway you know." and I do)
We are just like this:
Not! We're more like this:
Not!
Post #7
I own a queen bed, it's comfortable. Not small. There's a dip in the middle. I keep trying to sleep on the sides so that the middle hole isn't quite so prominent. But I always wake up in the middle, the lean is there, it's unavoidable. It's a physical realization of what it means to be alone. A big huge giant hole in the middle of your bed. And you fall into it.
- Anonymous, New York
Post #8
It's one thing to be lonely or have a lonely moment. It's another to know how to handle it. Sometimes the smallest things, oftentimes the smallest things actually, make all the difference. These things speak to our souls, they take us home and provide a sense of comfort and company no matter where you may be. These are things like marmite. My sister knows.
Post #9
This is a quote sent in by a family friend, somebody who I haven't seen in ages (maybe twenty years), but I think really hits an emotional point when it comes to being lonely as it feels very hopeless as far as the idea that you can never really escape your self or your own isolation even if in the company of loved ones.
“Sometimes he caught himself listening to the sound of his own voice. He thought that in her eyes he would ascent to an angelical stature; and, as he attached the fervent nature of his companion more and more closely to him, he heard the strange impersonal voice which he recognized as his own, insisting on the soul's incurable loneliness. We cannot give ourselves, it said: we are our own.”
-- James Joyce
Post #10
My friend Kent works at my favorite wine shop in Park Slope called Sip (Jasnieres anyone?) and as we've gotten to chatting with each other I was more then happy to invite him into the circle. These are some photographs he sent in, all with a slight air of loneliness, I especially like the bus stop girl.
