A week in Bordeaux (or, an argument for being alone to understand loneliness)

Everyone who knows me already knows this from my incessant Instagram updates, but I’ve recently spent a week in Bordeaux, on my own. Everything has its pros and cons, of course, and visiting for a week (in the sun) is surely not indicative of what it’s like to live somewhere. But to me there was something about it as a place and a trip - I felt absolutely at ease. In many ways it could be my ideal city: not too big, with a historic city centre that feels like a real, living town. There’s wonderful food, with thought behind it. Plenty of natural wine lists and interesting places to drink, despite being the hub of a very ‘traditional’ style of wine. Things that felt on-trend didn’t feel self-consciously ‘trendy’ in the way they often do in Hackney (where, frankly, everyone seems to need to dress the same). There are inexplicably (I’m sure there is a reason, if I dug) sewing and knitting shops on nearly every street. People are friendly, the river is lined with runners going up and down the banks, there are trams, the historic buildings are seemingly preserved and beautiful, and there are lovely wide streets you can walk up and down without feeling overwhelmed by masses of people.

I spent a week there, having made absolutely no plans, mostly working during the day and wandering around mornings, noons, and evenings. I spent my time semi-aimlessly, alone, poking around streets and discovering their different viewpoints, which spots were coolest in the middle of a heatwave, and where I could sit the longest with a couple glasses of wine and a book. Being alone was perhaps a key element in this: I didn’t need to make plans, or accommodate what someone else wanted to do. I could develop my own relationship with the city and its streets, notice funny little things about it, like starting to see the quirks of someone you spend enough time looking at. I figured out which routes I liked, and where I wanted to go back to try the rest of the wine list. This isn’t really a travelogue, but I think the combination of feeling at ease while surrounded by unfamiliar sights that required active attention prompted a new ‘click’ on the dial of my relationship with myself.

Somehow it felt special now to spend this time alone with a city. It’s odd, because most of the travel I have done has also been alone. I’ve been to nearly every continent alone. There is nothing like it, and now even more I appreciate it: I have seen and experienced some things that really, fundamentally shifted my understanding of myself, of the world, of other people, of nature, without the safety of someone else to relate to, to shield me, to brush it off with. That can make it exceptionally lonely, especially when you’re halfway around the world from home, operating in a second language (or barely being able to understand what’s going on). Being alone, sometimes you really have to accept that you are small, and you are not always right, or that you’re really scared and confused, and figure out why. No wonder so many people avoid traveling alone; It’s brutal and wonderful at the same time.

This time it was nothing like that, to be fair. I felt for the most part totally comfortable, and knew that I could find what I wanted and needed whenever. I did exactly what suits me: running, soaking up sun, eating a whole baguette for lunch when I felt like it, eating a plate of tomatoes for dinner, or eating two dinners when I felt like it, writing down poetic tasting notes for pet nat & orange wine (enjoy), practicing my rusty French on anyone with the patience to listen, reading books, lying in the park watching kids kick around a football. I wonder if partly it was different this time because my relationship with myself is already different. I also am happier with myself now than I probably ever have been, and being alone feels less like an unconsciously self-imposed exile, and more like an active pleasant choice. I have gone through enough to now have a sense of self that holds up better than it did before - and that might actually even make me more porous to my environment than I was before and more willing to accept what I also don’t know. And I’m less stressed by opening up and connecting with people than I once was. I think I’m also more aware of myself and how it feels to be somewhere alone, and how to make the most of that.

Walking around town, partly just living my normal life, working on my laptop and responding to texts and keeping up with instagram, but also surrounded by a new environment that forced me to notice my own boundaries, and where they could blur, something occurred to me very clearly. I’m fine alone, I know how to enjoy the world around me, and I am good company, frankly. I have a thousand thoughts a minute about what I’m looking at, and for the most part I find them genuinely engaging. I enjoy pushing the edges of what’s comfortable for me, and trying to figure out how I can fit in somewhere unfamiliar, without having to just lose my sense of self. I like pushing the boundaries of my vocabulary in a foreign language, and sometimes making a fool of myself, because that’s how you learn. And truly everyone should get to experience the pleasure of their own company, and the world unmediated by someone else next to them, or by the safety and consistency of self that a familiar face and conversation offers.

There’s a clear difference, to me, between being alone, and being lonely. And I learned to embrace being alone long ago. But also a moment occurred  in which I became acutely aware of the limitations of aloneness, and that maybe my pleasure in it is mixed with other feelings more than I was willing to admit before. I was walking down towards the banks of the river after work. It was the middle of a heatwave and I felt like my whole body was already baked through, to the point where I could feel how much had evaporated, and soon I could start floating above the sidewalk. Something nice had happened in my day a couple hours earlier, just a small exchange that made me feel good and made it feel like life was moving forward in some way, and made it clear that I actually had an impact on people in a positive way, even beyond people I know very well. It filled me with satisfaction, even if it was something very small.

I was thinking about this as I was walking, and when I recognised the pleasant feeling, I immediately wanted to tell someone and share in this pleasure. Somehow, it seemed like the sharing it would make it more real, or make it expand in some way. But the thing that took me by surprise was that I didn’t know who to tell. I literally stopped walking down the street, thinking “how can there be nobody to tell this to?” I stood there on the sidewalk, unlocking and re-locking my phone screen. I had to stop myself opening my first instinctive text chain, and then my second and third I thought maybe it would just sound out of context and like bragging, or just not as meaningful to the recipient. Others I thought: that’s not really something I would tell them. Others I knew were busy, and what I wanted was someone who would really pay attention to it, and tell me they also thought it was great. I realized, that for all the modes of communication at my fingertips, all then people I have various forms of relationships with, there wasn’t anyone I felt really shared any investment in. my experiences, or emotions, or sense of self. I felt, suddenly, extremely lonely.

I stayed standing there for a moment and looked around. There were people everywhere: friends having after work beers, kids running around in swimsuits in the sunshine screaming out of pointless delight, the buildings themselves seemed alive, all their intricately carved stone in high relief in the evening light, heat amplified off them. The fact of standing there alone wasn’t really that lonely, actually, and it was a beautiful scene and I could see other small interpersonal stories unfolding around me. I felt the instinctive contentment that a summer day like that brings. In many senses it was a very nice moment.

But at the same time I didn’t have anyone who I could genuinely share this with. I could tell it to someone, and they would read it, but that’s not the same. It wouldn’t really impact them, and honestly it probably wouldn’t really matter to them for more than the second they had to reply to it. Their sense of me would stay exactly the same, and simply telling someone wouldn’t help me build this into my sense of self. Sharing implies a different kind of exchange, a weaving back and forth if you will. My inner life was completely my own, and nobody else held on to even a single thread of it. And what I’m getting at is there is another kind of being alone: I can only say it is a deep, existential loneliness. Of being on some fundamental level, disconnected from anyone else at any given moment. It’s the kind of moment where you have to confront - sorry - exactly how small your proportion of existence is in the grand scheme of the Earth and everything going on around you as you stand there.

I want to be clear about this: I know very well I’m not friendless, or unloved. I know I could reach out to someone with the information I wanted to and they would react positively in some way. I know my actions have an impact on people (or, I live in the belief they do.) I have so many wonderful people in my life, and I share with them all kinds of different interests, and thoughts, and varying levels of intimacy. But there is some other kind of understanding, what I guess is sometimes referred to as “being seen,” or just being held in someone’s mind, that can be missing even if, in day to day life, we’re not actually alone. And it’s also incredibly important when we are alone. We all want our self to be important beyond the boundaries of wherever we happen to be standing, don’t we?

And as much as I was enjoying this time alone, really revelling in it, I also realized this: it’s also not a whole way of being, to be completely alone with the things you think and feel. When I really sat with myself and listened, I saw a kind of craving, I think, to be completely understood, or at least know that someone really wants to understand me, and try to share in my feelings. And that we would share in, and build on, our respective existences. That if I tell someone about myself, about what happened to me, how it impacted me, my subjective experience of that, they will have some desire to see the world through my eyes, or at least embrace that information and I suppose prioritize it. That sharing this information makes me a part of someone else’s life even when I’m not present, and that they’re with me in my mind, as the person I’d pass on an experience to. I’m not sure I have the language to completely explain this, which may be part of it. I can never text someone enough to overcome it, for example. (This is the moment where I rationally understand why this song made me cry originally. Let’s not forget that in some ways our dialogue with art can also make us feel less alone, across time.) Basically: it’s a sense of genuinely mattering, in a generative and creative way, not just statically existing.

For some reason (general 00s nostalgia?) I keep listening to the Michelle Branch song “Everywhere“ recently. (There’s no such thing as a guilty pleasure. I own it. It’s a jam.) In one of these Spotify throwback sessions it occurred to me, while I was signing along alone in the car, how apt the lyrics actually might be:

“'Cause every time I look, you're never there
And every time I sleep, you're always there

'Cause you're everywhere to me
And when I close my eyes, it's you I see
You're everything I know, that makes me believe
I'm not alone”

Sometimes pop songs are exactly the place to go to find an expression of these kinds of feelings, because in a sense they’re universal. (“Anything too stupid to be said is sung,” said Voltaire, allegedly. But also anything we feel uncomfortable simply saying outright.) What was I singing along to? Essentially the expression that someone or something outside of ourselves, even if they/it are not physically present, or not visible, can be an anchor for our sense of self. Knowing that we exist for someone else, in their mind, and that they exist in our mind, is fundamental for our sense of existence. “I think therefore I am” is far too simple, in fact - it also require me thinking of you, and you thinking of me.

When we’re physically around other people, I think it’s easy to take for granted that someone will “get it”; they’re at least seeing, or tasting, or hearing etc the same thing as you. But actually should we take that for granted? Being alone and wanting to communicate something about myself, I realized I wasn’t sure who would actually want to receive this information, let alone if they would understand what I had to say. And beyond that, if they would be able to engage with it in a way that turns it into something new, that weaves it into the relationship and back into my understanding of myself. As the last lines of “Everywhere” say so succinctly, “so tell me, do you see me?” and I think that’s what we really need (but also sometimes fear.)

I wonder if this is where spirituality can come in for many of us, although I don’t think spirituality always has to be the answer. Maybe for many it’s not sought out in spirituality, but in seeking out intimacy to greater or lesser emotional satisfaction. But this kind of loneliness comes from the feeling that you don’t exist beyond yourself, which is on some level terrifying. Because in that case, what are we doing here? I have a suspicion that many people do have, underneath it all, this deep sense of loneliness - and to avoid having to really acknowledge it many of us avoid being alone. But in my opinion it’s not the being alone that is the problem, it’s the lack of this sort of existential connection, of total alienation from someone else or something larger, that is really scary.

As I understand it this is the goal of meditation really, to sit alone with yourself until your self ‘dissolves’ in the sense that you experience how it is also connected with everything and everyone else. The fullest version of this sense of connection is perhaps all kinds of ‘ecstatic’ or ‘transcendental’ experiences that we can potentially have. In my experience, those are also the moments where we feel, on some indescribable level, connected with much larger narratives, and also there is huge creative energy in them. There are many routes to that, but some are found just in the very small, day-to-day exchanges. I realized that in wanting to just share this little moment, and have an exchange about it, and feel held in someone’s mind, getting to that point requires a kind of ‘practice’ or ongoing exchange that can catalyse the bigger moments.

When I write this (on my phone, intended for an instagram post initially) it’s maybe a kind of attempt to have all this stuff that’s in my head, disconnected from anyone else, understood. And then I immediately second guess myself about writing it, because I worry that I sound like I’m repeating some teen angst I would have written in a LiveJournal post 20 years ago, which feels deeply embarrassing. And actually sometimes I’ve been made to feel that analysing this and expressing these kinds of feelings should be embarrassing, and is the root of my loneliness. But maybe that’s because we tend to criticise ourselves for admitting these feelings, or we try as hard as we can to not acknowledge them. It’s ‘cheesy’ or weird to seek this out sometimes, or to at least talk about it openly. Which is perhaps why we tend to avoid spending so much time alone too, because we’d have to acknowledge this sense of longing. Really I think the sad thing is we’re not trained to sit with ourselves and see these kinds of feelings and be able to articulate them and also accept them as a part of being human. Possibly the most beautiful thing about being human! And being able to ask for recognition, and give it to someone - really looking at someone, and taking interest - is a really amazing kind of love (but also I think quite scary).

Well, I was speaking to a friend the other day about the idea of “love,” and what does it mean when you love someone. (For the record they were referring this book, which I need to add to my list.) We discussed how having one word for “love” seems wildly inadequate, and supposing that there’s one way to love someone, and that it always feels the same, is limiting and maybe a little foolish. Interestingly, in the book How to Change Your Mind, it becomes clear that a common great revelation of transcendent experiences is that “love is everything,” and yet all we can do (at least in English) is dumb it down to one very short word. I think what I’m getting at with this tangent is that love is also an important element of this loneliness or connection; you can love someone or be loved and still feel lonely. But also the kind of connection, and understanding, I’m referring to seems like some very important kind of love, or something that needs to be built out of and worked on in love, no matter what ‘kind’ of love it is. And it is something that exists as much when we’re alone as when we’re physically present with someone else.

Interestingly, I think many of us can be in “intimate” relationships, partnerships even, where we are not really alone, but actually on this more existential level we are still lonely, and constantly searching for a way to feel connected. To be fully honest, I think this deep loneliness has persisted in most of my relationships. I’ve jumped through all kinds of hoops, subconsciously tried all kinds of strange, obscure tactics to try and fix it, I’ve tried to literally explain myself over and over again, with slightly different words and grammar, in the hopes of overcoming it. But I think because I never could pinpoint what was going on, I couldn’t actually ‘fix’ it, and it probably also requires the other person to want to meet you halfway. And language also isn’t sufficient. The word “love” isn’t quite enough for this idea, is it? And language can only go so far in helping us feel connected (unfortunately for me, a lover of words.) I’m now curious how it happens that we end up in relationships where it’s missing, or how we make more of an effort to ensure it’s not missing.

Well, in light of this, I want to make a case for being alone more. When we sit alone with ourselves, it’s possible to get down to a point of depth in our understanding of ourself that helps us figure out who we are and what matters most. What ideas and thoughts do we really want to connect over, and how do we make the most of them? What is our impact beyond the boundaries of ourself - or what do we really want it to be? That’s actually amazing, isn’t it, to be able to be conscious of those things, and act on them intentionally? We can see ourselves clearly, and appreciate that much more what having someone else to converse with, and share ourselves with, adds to our lives and expands our sense of self and general being. Unfortunately sometimes this sense of self can feel impossible to articulate, let alone share with another person who has their own ego and the same limitations of language as us. So then how do we get to the point that we feel truly connected?

I think in fact, in more profane areas of life, there’s a lesson to be learned from spirituality. It’s the way that a ‘practice’ or ritual works, and how the idea of someone having an active exchange with me was the important thing, not just the act of me telling someone. I think conversation is a really important part of that - if I texted someone this thought about my day, that we would have an exchange back and forth that would turn it into something else in my life, and even outside of just myself - and I’ll have to come back to that thought later.

But so much of what we do - finding forms of self expression, art, music, getting in to arguments because we don‘t feel ‘heard’, joining clubs, practising religion, sending each other memes - is centered around feeling understood and connected. To some extent maybe even the carved façades of the buildings I was standing outside were intended to express some inner belief and share it with others, to make one’s inner self feel real to others. The interior of the cathedral next to my airbnb was certainly designed to evoke a feeling of connection to something bigger. We’re all wandering around trying to figure it out aren’t we?

Maybe this is just the makings of some bigger theory but for now, just a reflection spurred by a week of meandering around solo. I think I will continue these thoughts in another post later. For now though I can say: being ok being alone doesn’t mean not also being lonely sometimes. But it also shouldn’t be something to be afraid of, and in fact might help build up a real sense of connection in the long run. I think it’s also a rare chance to really see yourself, without all the refractions we usually use to deflect. Strangely, on some level this moment of realisation made me feel immediately less lonely again, because I (I suppose I mean my ego) really understood what was going on internally for once - at least on some level I felt genuinely understood. So, ok, enjoying your own company can also be tinged with loneliness. It’s wonderful and full of depth that probably would never be achievable without the space to look back in at yourself. And then that means you get to figure that all out and share it with other people, and maybe are able to better understand them too. So I guess very thankful for times and places (and also in a way the people and places who offered me the opposite of what I wanted) that let me see this so clearly, because how else would I know what I’m really looking for, or how to work on it and help develop it, or see it when it appears?