A POET IN THE STREET

A few weeks ago, in the silent, sleepy siesta-time streets of Modica Alta, I was introduced to a poet. This kindly man, whom I immediately perceived as suffering from agoraphobia [he had had to be persuaded to come out of the house for a moment by my friend] has published several books of beautiful verse. I cannnot identify him here as he is so fragile that to do so would be to destroy him. And I pondered, not for the first time, upon how many good, lonely people there are in the world and how talented many of them are: this is not surprising, as great art of all genres is often born out of solitude and great suffering. But what exactly is loneliness? It is not, to me, being alone - I am rather good at that – but instead I would define it as having no choice in the matter.

Some years ago, in Britain, I became involved with someone who turned out to be a conman. I was very vulnerable at the time and, because I had not had for a long period that which most people take for granted - someone who is there, who will ask you how your day was, who always calls to say goodnight – I let him wheedle his way into my life with little resistance. Afterwards, when I had come to my senses and it was over, a book that helped me recover was Elizabeth Jane Howard’s Falling and in it I could see myself, ignoring the warning signals – and there always are warning signals – because, like many lovers before me, I had wanted to believe.

Ruthie and M are two bloggers who have written extensively about their own feelings of loneliness and I think they would agree with me that it’s not about not having friends or even family. It's about not being first with someone. Yet I have married friends whom I have envied, only later to have found out that things are not as they seem in their [to me] secure situations and I have concluded that I would rather be alone [not lonely] than so dependent on another that I cannot face the world when he has gone [though of course loss is the ultimate price of love]. Then there is my blogging friend Lee, who, like me, is rather content on her own most of the time and who, like me, can become quite put out by the unexpected visitor. I suspect that this , in myself at any rate, is because I plan my evenings to keep out the cold of loneliness so that sudden ring of the doorbell can be disturbing and even alarming.

And I think of Sara Teasdale’s lines:
I should be glad of loneliness,
And hours that go on broken wings,
A thirsty body, a tired heart,
And the unchanging ache of things,
If I could make a single song
As lovely and full of light,
As hushed and brief as a falling star,
On a winter night.


And now as I sit typing along comes precious Simi and licks my bad foot and I reflect that I have all the love in the world, right here, right now, in a little study in Sicily.