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Solitude

The Source

It seems this happens to me more and more often of late. I’m faced with a multi-hour cross-country drive and choose silence as my companion. I’d had several upcoming plays, plans and procedures to mull over and even the stimulating talk of National Public Radio seemed a distraction so I simply shut off everything but the Honda and rode the four hours in silence. As God would say, “And it was good.” Solitude. So sweet. Our guide to Ireland and Scotland two summers past lived just outside Paris. I enjoy quizzing tour guides about their jobs. Meeting such a wide variety of people and the constant travel must surely bless them with fascinating lives. After he told me about the joys of crisscrossing Europe with American tourists, I asked him if his job had any downside. “Yes,” he said. “I’m never really alone. I hate that.” Solitude. So rare. Ralph Nader writes in his new book, Seventeen Traditions, talks of the seventeen character-building traits that shaped him and that are so sadly lacking for most of today’s kids: listening, family table, health, history, scarcity, equality, education, discipline, simple enjoyments, reciprocity, independent thinking, charity, work, business, patriotism, solitude, and civics. He speaks eloquently to what he’s learned by simply being alone with his thoughts…no I pod, no computer, no Facebook, no texting, tweeting or even talking. In a recent CSPAN interview he said, “My dad would often tell me to just go off by myself and think. I’d sit and watch clouds. Do kids ever do that anymore?” Do any of us? Solitude. So fleeting. Okay, I’ll admit that I’m a bit odd. Since I sometimes compose music, I can’t think while I’m listening to music. I believe my Lincoln Land students…at least a little… when they tell me they study with music playing. Okay, I’ll further admit that I really don’t believe them. They say they have the benefit of full concentration while listening to Lady Goo-Goo, and there’s no convincing them otherwise so I pretend to agree. And I can’t go to sleep listening to music because I end up thinking about the music. I was rooming at the Pere Marquette Lodge last week and shared a room with one of my fellow musicians. He asked if I minded music at bedtime. I told him that I didn’t mind music, but please don’t expect me to sleep. Solitude. So calming. A couple of years ago there was a great deal of press about how this generation of youngsters were the first to master the art of multi-tasking, being able to concentrate on several things at once. Then someone actually studied it. In survey after survey we now find that when you listen to music you cannot give your full attention to a book, when you text while talking your brain must switch back and forth…not actually do two things at once, and most horrifically, talking on a phone or texting while driving actually kills people. In short, multi-tasking is a lie. Solitude. So life-saving. I had driven to Moline to the sounds of a bluegrass gospel tape, an NPR interview with the late correspondent Daniel Shoor, and the latest reports on the Gulf oil spill. I enjoyed the gospel music, I gained an even deeper respect for Mr. Schoor, and was encouraged a bit at the progress on stopping the oozing guck in the Gulf. But when I turned my car around the next morning and headed downstate for home and my coffee machine, I was given an even greater treat…and my life was richer as a result. I drove in silence. I wrote the last scene of the Passavant play, I planned two newspaper columns, I rearranged my August schedule into something manageable, I prayed for my family, I noticed how the recent rains had decimated a few cornfields in the river bottoms, I observed how the small towns along the route had grown even smaller, I rolled down the window somewhere around Galesburg where the state crews were mowing grass and I breathed deeply of that aroma that lightens the heart of every Midwesterner. Solitude was indeed a most welcome and happy companion. Solitude. So very good.