What do you hear in the silence of solitude?

Lessons in being alone

I am an extreme extrovert. I took a Myers-Briggs test about a decade ago and scored 30/30 on questions testing extroversion. I draw energy and nourishment from time spent with others. I subscribe to the idea that I can’t really know what I think if I can’t hear myself talk.

Perhaps it’s mysterious then that I would embark on a solo journey during which I could well spend almost all my time by myself.

I have spent more time alone in the last 35 days than I think I have in the last 30 years of my life. As the slowest pilgrim on the trail, I am perpetually passed by others moving faster, leaving me the last lone walker most afternoons. I relish the long silent afternoons of the Camino when I am alone for miles on end.

I am coming to appreciate that this extended period of solitude is something like the giant gulps of breath a deep sea diver takes before plunging themselves underwater. A daily foot to the ribs is a gentle reminder that it will soon be much more difficult (and for a time, nearly impossible) to claim so much time for myself.

Loneliness, solitude, and aloneness are each a different experience. It is possible to be surrounded by humans and feel deeply lonely just as it is possible to be the only person in screaming distance of 10 miles and revel in the feeling and freedom of deep solitude. Chosen solitude is almost always more joyful than accidental aloneness. The absence of other humans creates more space for reflection and feeling than the indifferent presence of strangers. It is possible to be physically surrounded by people in the crush of the big city while still feeling emotionally alone. Over the past 41 days, I’ve experienced all of the shades of gray of loneliness and solitude, coming to appreciate the gift of their unique nuances.

The world is full of noise and distractions that demand our attention. My inbox. My instagram feed. The views on this newsletter. The likes on my latest instagram post. The news. My bank balance. Anything that might belong on a to-do list or that causes general anxiety and concern, or conversely, the things that provide a dopamine hit of relief from the generally fraught and frenetic state of the world. Though I certainly haven’t gone cold turkey on any of these things, I’ve managed to turn down the volume on the noise and turn up the signal on the voices in my head and heart.

On the Camino, my concerns are simple. Where am I eating breakfast, lunch and dinner? Where am I sleeping tonight? How far can I physically walk today? Am I eating enough protein? Have I had enough water to drink?

Every day, the answers are different but the questions are the same, and this rhythm, this monotony, creates a kind of mental space that quiets the other parts of the mind. From time to time, I get caught in those other worldly distractions and suddenly cannot hear myself think. But I pull back. I recenter.

Walking alone through the Spanish countryside, I have sometimes felt the need to fill my head with entertainment, to take my mind off the miles and the ache in my feet. I’ve listened to Sara Bareilles’ Live from the Hollywood Bowl album at least five times a week. I’ve listened to audiobooks about birth and podcasts about everything from the Elizabeth Holmes trial to the challenge of making honest art. Especially as I was making my way across the wind-torn flatness of the Spanish meseta, this soundtrack to the challenge felt like a necessity. I needed to distract myself from how hard it was to push through in order to induce myself to keep going.

In her song, Someone Who Loves Me, Sara Bareilles sings:

Surrender's just a word

Till you try it out

And see how hard it is to hurt

With someone else around

In listening to Sara’s live album ad nauseum the last five weeks, I’ve come to appreciate both of these sentiments, the importance of surrender, and the extraordinary challenge of of fully experiencing deep and difficult feelings in the day to day rhythm of life. Distance from the people you love and the daily obligations of family and work create space for this kind of surrender.

The birdsong and wind, the rustling of leaves, the gentle distant clinking of cow bells creates a natural soundscape the provides a willing backdrop for the narration of the soul. I am less concerned with hearing myself talk and more able to let myself feel, to hear the emotional waves moving beneath the surface.

I am contemplating my life’s forthcoming transformation, the demands this new being will make on me and my family, the changes I will experience in my body, heart, and mind before, during, and after birth.

I am reflecting on the choices I have made that have shaped my life, especially the times I said yes when I might have no. I have reviewed the inventory of my failings, the decisions I could rightly call “mistakes” and I have likewise walked through the hard choices that were right even when they felt impossible or wrong. A life is a tapestry of chance, circumstance, and choice. There is no payoff to mourning the material we’ve been given to work with or what we’ve done with it. And yet grieving the fallout of these choices comes with its own sense of relief.

Circumstance is a compilation of other people’s choices, and this too has been part of my journey. Abortion, infidelity, and divorce are not just part of my personal history but my emotional heritage. That they are manifest in my life is perhaps simply evidence that history repeats itself until someone works to bend it in a new direction.

As the only child of divorced parents starting at age 4, I spent a good deal of my childhood emotionally alone if well attended by babysitters and flight attendants. At times, the albergue life of the Camino—sleeping in a different bed each night, unpacking and packing a backpack, paying for clean and kind but unemotional caretaking—has brought to mind these dimensions of my childhood. I learned how to pack a suitcase and make small talk with strangers by the age of 8. I also learned to insulate my feelings from others, to protect people from my own insecurity. This is both a skill and a difficult habit to break. It meant that I spent much of my childhood learning to think and very little of it learning to feel.

Now as an adult, I am trying to unlearn this behavior. In this endless walk through the pastoral Spanish countryside, I have let myself cry the tears of whatever comes, appreciating that there is no one there to ask what is wrong or if I am okay. The ability to feel the sadness of my childhood self, unencumbered by the need to explain or apologize, is a gift as I prepare myself for all the choices I will be called to make that will shape the life of my child. How will I choose the circumstances of his life, to bend history away from its difficult past towards a more joyful and nourishing future?

As I approached the Cruz de Fierro, the highest point on the Camino, I held two stones in my hand: one for grief, the other for shame. I made my way up the giant pile of stones that represents the castoff burdens of pilgrims amassed over hundreds of year and knelt down, looking for a place to lay my stones to rest. It was cold and windy and I closed my eyes and wept with the relief that this moment, the time for casting off and letting go, had finally come. I dug my fingered into the gravel to carve out a resting place for each of them, a small but meaningful burial rite. I held in my other hand the small shell pendant imprinted with a heart that I had bought from a blacksmith in Irache hundreds of miles ago. I closed my eyes and prayed:

Please God, let me put down these heavy weights I have carried for too long. Let me fill the space created by their surrender with the deepest kind of love.

I stood, turned my back on the cross, and began my walk down the mountain, letting myself surrender to the tears of both relief and hope.

Now, as I am counting down the last 100 miles of this journey, I have reached a more transcendent head space. I am feeling less grief and more peace, less struggle and more freedom. I am trusting that the path I am on is the right one, and that if I pay attention to the signs, I will see the yellow arrows marking the way.

This extended experience of both loneliness and solitude has also reminded me what I am missing when I am alone. As much as the Camino’s deep and undisturbed solitude provides a vital window into the self and the soul, fellowship is an important part of the Camino, too, and strangers quickly become friends on this journey. I have shared meals and walking days with Germans, Hungarians, Brits, South Africans, Americans, Spaniards, Canadians, and French people, all of whom have touched my life with their care for my well-being, their willingness to walk my slow pace, and their interest in my story. These companions have offered me great comfort and a helpful reminder that we cannot do anything alone, something I’ve spent much of my life struggling to remember.

Over the last two years, I have shed many of the lonely habits of my first marriage and my previous life. Choosing to be with a loving partner who I get to wake up and go to sleep with every day, and becoming a stepmother to two young girls, has enmeshed me in a beautiful web of both obligation and ever-present love that I have never had before. This sneak peak at parenthood has let me witness the ways children enrich a family and create opportunities for connection and joy. Removing myself from those daily and weekly patterns of caretaking and connection has only deepened my appreciation for and anticipation of the new chapter that is ahead for me and us in welcoming this new being into our family.

My prayer for my son is that he will get to grow up surrounded by love with the freedom to be all that he is, with the courage to find his own Camino, wherever it may lead him.