Lonely Planet

There's nothing on the planet that makes me more sad than seeing people who are alone.  Sometimes, I can almost not bear sitting in a restaurant where I see a person dining by him/herself.  It may be that they are not truly lonely, but the appearance of someone dining alone breaks my heart--it reminds me of how many people are out there longing.  We all push others away, becoming more and more distant as technology and social "codes" isolate us completely.  It is looked on as a big gesture when you call a person on the phone to ask them how they're doing.  It is strange to ask someone out in person.  It is out of line to show up at someone's door for no reason but to see them. 

We're this species that lives and breeds off intimacy, emotional and physical, but yet we keep creating and subscribing to these things that increase our separation from one another.  We text others even when we sit with someone.  We position ourselves on the bus, as far away from others as possible-sometimes standing to avoid eye contact with one another.  We put in our music devices so we don't have to listen to anyone else.  We remain silent and distant from the people around us until it is our turn to leave the vehicle. 

I want more than that from people.  I want people to show up at my house for a surprise visit.  I want to meet new people everywhere I go.  I want the whole LRT to engage in a song of 99 bottles of beer on the wall.  I want someone to call me instead of text me, to send me a letter instead of a Facebook post, to make plans for adventures where we can meet people who want the same things.  I want to find out about someone (about whom I care) from them and not from a status/twitter update.  It seems we've distanced ourselves too much for "big" gestures.   

I want this connection so badly but: I only sometimes talk to the person who looks lonely, only sometimes smile broadly at the woman eating alone in the restaurant, only sometimes talk to people on the bus or train.  But I always listen to the people who talk to me and talk back, and smile back at the people who smile at me in a friendly manner.  I want them to keep it up.  I want them to keep smiling at and chatting with strangers--making even a fraction of a connection.  Because, connections feel good.  There are so many people in the city, in the country, in the world.  I won't ever know them all but I want to know so many-starting with the loneliest.   

The Beginning and the Start of the End

So this is what the city looks like, cold-hearted and broken down.  How long you held out from the bitterness which now consumes you-bitten by the frost that changes every hue of vigor-green to white and every bit of moist joy to dust, flick-flaking it away and spitting it out.  This is what you look like, tired of it here: awakened in the night to find a ceiling, too familiar.  A memory which reminds you of how recent it was when once you were wrapped in the blankets cowering under the bed, crying over a stump of a tree you once remember begging not to forget you, though you forgot it.

The snow held out for almost as long as my sanity.  I felt the pregnant earth, too fertile for November, shake with those same tremors in the night, waiting for the ice-tears of the clouds to brush over her.  I waited.  I could smell the pine-scent of longing screaming through the trees and ripping over the ridges of its own sanity.  It was time.