Ulysses and the Sirens by H.J. Draper
There’s a recurring character in books and films that resonates very strongly with me. It’s there in the mysterious V in V for Vendetta, Jason Bourne, and The Jackal: a lone wolf, who walks the earth in solitude, their trials and triumphs experienced largely alone. It’s an archetype that feels so familiar it is comforting, even if it is wrapped in sadness.
When things get hard for me, as they have been in this midlife year, my instinct is to separate myself, to walk out into ‘wilderness’, to be apart and alone.
It’s why I found myself in Antwerp and why I chose my current home — they were both foreign places, where I can roam the streets as an inconnu, unknown and unnoticed. I’ve been a solo traveller throughout my adult life and I find peace and safety this way.
This is the seventh instalment in a very personal series of letters about a period of transformation and growth in my life.
You can read the rest of the letters here.
Well, this week — as, here in the northern hemisphere, the days reach their shortest — I am taking it a step further and easing into a period of intentional solitude. I’ll be spending the holidays by myself and my hope is pass January and February without company, physical or virtual.
This is, understandably, most people’s idea of suffering (there’s a reason it’s part of our penal system!) and as I have begun to set boundaries with friends and family over the last few weeks, I’ve received quizzical looks and expressions of concern.
I am OK, and this is not a form of self-flagellation. It’s also not a set-in-stone rule — if I am losing my mind after two weeks, I’ll stop. But I have a sense that my tolerance for solitude is high and I am curious to discover the edges of my loneliness.
(An important caveat: I feel this is right for me, but in writing this letter, I am not recommending intentional solitude to you. Isolation can be very bad for your mental health, I have a therapist and support in place to keep me level for the duration.)
I wrote to you nearly three years ago about my fears of losing touch with the song of my own voice and my desire to unplug from the noise of outside influence. This season of solitude is a step along that path. It is a way of strapping myself to the mast, forcing myself to resist the siren call of, well…modern life.
I want to know: What happens if I really, actually, genuinely stop? What does it feel like to be truly still? What voice speaks up in the silence and what does it say? Can I surrender to annihilation? Will I allow myself — as Courtney Daniella Boateng puts it so nicely — “to be cooked in the hidden place?”
All sorts of thinkers, writers and spiritual folk have ‘wandered the desert’ at some stage in their lives. All come back — for that is the essential third part of any quest: the return.
In the spring I’ll write about my experience. And there are just a couple more chapters in this story I want to share before the end of this year, including one more bit of big news.
Thank you for sticking along with this journey so far, I know it’s been long!
Until another Sunday soon,
