A Coming of Terms: Alone

To dare to live alone is the rarest courage; since there are many who had rather meet their bitterest enemy in the field, than their own hearts in their closet. --Charles Caleb Colton

Pray that your loneliness may spur you into finding something to live for, great enough to die for. --Dag Hammarskjold

I was left with an interesting choice last night: Is it more lame to spend Saturday night completely alone or studying for Microbiology? After checking my email five times in two hours and reading every blog I care to follow... twice, I decided the lesser evil was a homework session at a late night cafe. Hopefully, that would take my mind off the suffocating weight of loneliness I felt pressing down on my chest and ringing in my ears.

Of course, it was already 9:00pm and late night study sessions become more difficult when a person is trying their hardest to be bike-only. While I would normally choose my destination based off the atmosphere of the cafe, my preference has changed to close proximity and on this particular occasion, the hours. A bit of research, a quick look at Google maps, and 20 minutes later, I find myself locking my bike to a rack at Zoka's in Green Lake. Saturday night might still be salvageable, I thought as I peered past glass at vegan chocolate chip cookies.

I ordered a iced green tea and a vegan cookie and found a table in the corner surrounded by windows. While the wind had picked up and clouds scattered the twilit sky, the air still carried the warmth and mugginess of a full Seattle summer day. Wait, Seattle summer days terminate in clear crispness rather than warm mugginess. Tonight felt charged, like a Midwestern night of lightning and humidity. Strange things were in the air and looming outside like bats or owls. Branches pushed each other back and forth in the wind. The trees swayed and waved, begging me to take notice of their frantic caution. A Gothic night peered at me through the black panes of the window and I felt fragile, pale, beautiful and on the verge of something grotesque. I opened my messenger bag, pulled out my book, and flipped to page 41. "'- tear up the planks! - here, here! - it is the beating of his hideous heart!'" No, wait, that wasn't quite right. I wouldn't be sitting around a campfire reading the complete works of Edgar Allan Poe. "Microscopy and Cell Structure." Unfortunately, that was more like it. I tried to convince my embittered imagination that microbes can carry their weight in Gothic elements (if only on a microscopic level), but it just sat in the corner, shunned and pouting.

I finished my tea, cookie, and very little of the reading I hoped to get done before closing down the cafe. In defense of my lack of study progress, Zoka's closed an hour earlier than I was expecting and had the best taste in music I have found since leaving Portland. I sat pondering the mechanisms of Gram stains to Beruit, Yann Tiersen, Death Cab for Cutie and the Decemberists. How could I help but be lost in memories when the kitchen staff so deliberately stole playlists from my iPod? Two thumbs up for Zoka's atmosphere and music choice, an unexpected surprise given my hours/proximity criteria. I unlocked my bike and began mentally preparing myself for my uphill ride at 11:30 at night.

I started my ride home, only to realize that I was flying for the second time that Saturday. The first time I flew was at Magnuson Park on Lake Washington. The sun was scorching the earth below and convinced me it was the perfect time for a swim. I paddled out past the shore and filled my lungs with air while I floated on my back. The shore moved to the side and my vision filled with sky. With my head dipped back and my ears covered with water, the cheerful play of the children on the beach and the chopping splash of the waves on the shore muffled to a near silence. They sounded so far away. I concentrated on the birds flying and the clouds scattered across blue. The waves swelled me close to the sky before pulling my limp body back to the earth. I accepted the bobbing motion and let myself soar with the dipping and climbing of the birds' flight above me. Oh, to fly on the waves on an unsuspecting Saturday, in silence and warmth with the birds at play. I felt a pang of loneliness at the experience of solitary near-bliss. I was flying alone, with the birds. Lord Jesus Christ, son of God. I breathed in. Have mercy on me, a sinner. I breathed out. I swelled toward the sky. Lord Jesus Christ, son of God. I breathed in. I fell toward the earth, pleading, have mercy on me, a sinner. I breathed out.

Riding a bike through city suburbs at night is also very close to flying. The streets are deserted of cars and pedestrians. The white lines blur orange in 10-ft sections of street light illumination. I turn a corner and plunge down a hill in darkness, the warm night air filling me up and raising my arms toward the sky. The stars are so close. I can touch them. They tickle my fingertips with their twinkling. My sweatshirt hood flaps with speed. My bicycle tail light quickly blinks red. Dimly lit bars exude the muffled sounds of billiards. Thud clink clink. Badly chosen pick-up lines are delivered on the rims of pink and blue neon martini glasses. Poetry, poetry! The air is alive and I fly on the back on the night, let loose and tickled by the stars. Tonight carries a charge, the hairs on my arm stand up straight.

A quick flash pulls my attention over Green Lake shortly before I hear the rumble and crash of thunder. A near perfect Saturday made nearly better by an unsuspecting lightning storm! I turn a detour into Green Lake park and start riding along the trail in darkness and silence. One couple sits cloistered on a park bench, lost in each others' arms. A group of friends laugh and joke when I zip past, surprised and relieved I hadn't hit their party. Another couple with a dog walks hand in hand in lease. Flash Crack Rumble. The small dog jumps and urinates before looking distrustingly at a sky suddenly turned evil. Despite the late hour, the warmth and the beauty of the night lure me to a bench by the lake that looks across at the storm.

I sit on a bench by the lake in the dark, watching the raw energy completely overpower the electric lights below. I breath in the ozone and feel my arm hairs prickle, caressed by the delicate night rather than the gentle strokes of a loved one's fingertips. Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, I feel well up from my heart, have mercy on me, a sinner. The prayer completes itself and continues on with every breath I take in and push out. The rhythm is only slightly disturbed and distracted by a sudden intake of breath at a particularly marvelous lightning bolt streaking across the sky. Rather than pinned under a rock of heavy loneliness, my soul is suspended on waves, bobbing up and down. My chest feels light and dizzy like a ride on a bicycle in the night. My ears ring with cracks of thunder and gushes of wind rather than a silent apartment on a Saturday night. Lord Jesus Christ, son of God. Lord Jesus Christ, son of God. I might be able to do this single thing, after all.


Have mercy on me, a sinner and forgive me of my doubt.


No my friend, darkness is not everywhere, for here and there I find faces illuminated from within; paper lanterns among the dark trees. --Carole Borges