Loneliness

Loneliness is a powerful feeling and when it strikes it can easily be mistaken for something other than. Though I have felt the pangs of being far from home and explored their cause there are times when it comes on in a strange way and leaves me feeling anxious and claustrophobic. The easily recognizable moments do seem to last the longest but there is within them a feeling of understanding. You know what you are feeling and why and though it is terribly depressing you take comfort in owning the moments and its effect on you. The triggers can vary greatly.

Days after arriving in Auckland we bought mobile phones. Now in and of themselves phones aren’t necessarily depressing but the one-year contract that came with them caused me much heartache. With my uncertain and lengthy future looming before me I found myself in a dark and wet city far from home, my family and anything remotely familiar. I’d only just arrived and already wanted desperately to go home. Only I have no home. And then I rationalized that if this were a vacation I most likely would not feel as such. I didn’t sleep well the night prior and there was little to no privacy at the hostel. All I wanted was my own room and my own bed. I don’t have either. What a sorry state of affairs I was in. But the moment passed and I was once again in a new and exciting place with places to explore and moments to experience.

Settled in as we are at Morning Star Farm I can still at times feel homeless. Manna plays through the stereo and suddenly I miss California desperately. The Maoris are beautiful people full of culture and history. Their cuisine is as unique to them as Mexican cuisine is to its people, but in my heart they are nothing compared to what I have left behind. I miss the close family structure and small stature. I miss the food and the music. I miss the language and trying to translate snippets of conversations. I had never before understood that not only were so many people assimilating to my culture but I to theirs as well. I feel a line separating me from the Maoris. I wish to cross it but I fear I will still see myself as just a visitor. I miss Mexico and its influence on me.

These are the moments when I feel lonely for my home I have left behind. Though they can be painful with their sudden and powerful effect I know from whence they came and why. These are own-able feelings. They have a place and reason that is easily recognizable; and then there are the heart-stopping anxiety driven crippling episodes when I find myself completely and utterly alone in a world so big and empty I will never find my way out of it again.

There have been two such moments since my arrival. The enormity of their effect on me and the negativity of it are baffling for they only come on in the most pristine and graphic displays of nature without human evidence. When on a hike or out pulling ragwort in the bush I suddenly find myself surrounded by gorse and it begins to close in on all sides of me. An incomprehensible fear, so strong I am convinced my intuition is telling me to flee from where I stand, takes hold and all that keeps me from running back to human civilization is my complete and utter inability to move my feet. Not only do the scope of my feelings cause me anxiety but the unknown of why or from where these feelings suddenly come on.

It took quite some time for me to associate the despair with feeling all alone. There are moments when we suddenly see our place in the world. The Transcendentalists believed this was how we should aspire to see our world around us on a constant basis. We are like opaque balls bouncing against each other inside a transparent sphere of containment, and sometimes our own ball becomes transparent as well and we can see every other ball in relation to each other and ourselves. Once while riding my horse through the riverbed in my hometown I had such an experience. I saw, for a moment the size of the world, within the universe, and my place on it. It is a feeling of complete release. You suddenly understand that all is as it is meant to be. It is working like a clock works, continuously and with little interference. Though short in length the experience has stuck with me and again I have felt it.

This feeling of being completely alone is the dark side of understanding as the Transcendentalists do. I saw my self and it was as if the world had abandoned me.

January 19, 2007