This week I present to you William Carlos Williams’ “Waiting,” in which a man finds joy and solace in being alone, and yet his heart sinks when he is greeted by the “happy shrieks” of his children:
When I am alone I am happy.
The air is cool. The sky is
flecked and splashed and wound
with color. The crimson phalloi
of the sassafras leaves
hang crowded before me
in shoals on the heavy branches.
When I reach my doorstep
I am greeted by
the happy shrieks of my children
and my heart sinks.
I am crushed.
Are not my children as dear to me
as falling leaves or
must one become stupid
to grow older?
It seems much as if Sorrow
had tripped up my heels.
Let us see, let us see!
What did I plan to say to her
when it should happen to me
as it has happened now?
This poem stood out to me for various reasons. Firstly, a point that does not relate to this week’s column. I love the line “must one become stupid/to grow older?” Although I won’t be discussing the possible lack-of-sense that may come with increasing age, I still find this line ringing in my eye drums and may want to dissect it in the future.
I chose “Waiting” because of the juxtaposition of being alone and being with company. I believe we all, or at least most of us, have our inner hermit. We have a part of ourselves, whether it is 50 or 15 percent, that is meant to be alone, confined to the safety of our walled-in bedrooms, hiding from the slightly pressured-filled confrontation and communication that await outside our chambers. Don’t get me wrong, I have fun when with my roommates and friends; we joke around, watch the Shaytards on YouTube (check them out!) and discuss everything from personalized vulva pendants being sold on Etsy to the scariness of becoming a “real person” (to be discussed in a later column).
However, there are times when, surprisingly enough, I don’t feel like talking to anyone besides the Mickey Mouses smiling on the blanket that rests on my bed. I just want to be alone, like the narrator of “Waiting,” staring at the metaphysical color-flecked sky and sassafras leaves in my hermit confinements. And when I am alone, I am sometimes a different version of myself. I think we may all identify with this (if not, I am slightly crazy and that is perfectly okay). Our alone selves don’t care if an attempted joke fails or if we have a giant pimple on our foreheads. Our alone selves don’t judge our stinky socks (maybe a little) or have to worry about getting mad at stupid girls walking down the street wearing Uggs. Our alone selves are happy being alone and silent, with the exception of the exhilarating conversation going on in our minds.
Where I, and many of us, differ from the narrator of the poem is we have the ability to not have our hearts sink when we are greeted by loved/liked ones. When we choose to embark from our hermit-licious rooms, we can come back to our living rooms and sidewalks and classrooms and places of work refreshed and ready for our inner voices to become outer voices once again. Some may think the idea of a hermit self may be strange, but I think that human interactions can just get plain tiring after a while. Call me crazy, but perhaps we all need to retreat from others in order to be able to appreciate what those others can give to us.
