Alone in the crowd - Darren Crowley
I thought I knew myself when I came back disentangled from my roots after living on the other side of the world for an entire year. To explain yourself in a foreign tongue, to people who haven’t known you for most years of your life, haven’t laughed, cried, lived and experienced with you, requires some inward reflection. You see, after that year and the countless months to come, which I spent unfolding my mind, I came to the realization that self exploration had only just begun.
Now, four years later I realize that all I knew back then was me when I was with others. Until you have moved out and live alone you will not know that certain kind of loneliness that is self inflicted and hollow. The loneliness that is the absence of yourself and the loneliness you have to adjust to and grow comfortable with. The loneliness that gets lost when you fill your room with love and music and begin to understand what it means to be at home within yourself.
You grow up with double-consciousness. The therm was around during the literary period of Romanticism and was relevant throughout the Harlem Renaissance, which is what fascinated me most. The Harlem Renaissance had woven itself throughout the quilt of american history during the Roaring 20s. It was the discovery and expression of African American culture and life and it was the time when duBois wrote of double-consciousness. You might call it four eyed vision. Two eyes are watching the world from their place inside your skull-turning inward and outward, always glazed with your perspective. Two eyes are watching you from outside. They could rotate in the mailman’s head, the cleaners, the bus drivers, your friends, your childrens, your wifes, your husbands. They are a part of your mind.
Obviously I would never try to equate the experience of being experienced by others to the experience of being an African American in American society during the 20s or now even, but I would like to paint an image of the importance of self reflection through the metaphor of double consciousness.
What I am trying to say is: being defined by others can make you lazy. Double-consciousness suggest that you are aware of how others perceive you and how you perceive yourself at all times, but I think drawing encouragment, discouragment, admiration, love, hatred and definition from other people’s perception can heavily distort our perception of self. Until I moved out, alone time was always temporary. Whenever my social life would dwindle down to a bare minimum throughout the winter months, I would still be surrounded by family, sibblings, neighbours, peers,- friends even -most hours of the day. Alone time was rare and cherished. As soon as I moved out, I noticed the remarkable difference of having to deal with yourself for more than a few hours. I would experience what it felt like to have spent an entire day without using your voice. Getting up, living a day and going to bed without having spoken to, smiled at or hugged someone. I felt this emptiness through lack of definition for the first time. No kind smile, no sneer, no friendly grin, no “oh that’s classic you”. What am I, when the outside is removed? What makes me happy? How can I be alone with my head?
I struggled a few times and there were tear stained pillow cases, especially when I had to deal with what life throws at you without the safety net of my family to fall back on, but I have never learned so much about myself as I did throughout those dreary days in February when life seemed to pause and the air moved through my room, thick like curling cigarette smoke. I learned to be with myself and feel warm, feeling conscious of existing in the tips of my fingers and the ends of my hair. I felt the sensation of being full of yourself - not the figure of speech ”full of yourself”, but the feeling of wholesomeness and a home within your skin, soul and body. I scribbled my thoughts on countless pages of my journal, exploring my mind, getting lost in it and letting it wander. Upon reading those pages of things that I think about, thoughts, observations and feelings that flutter across the surface of my mind or stir deep within, I would feel like I got to know myself. The way my mind moves, writhes and coils, unwinds and unfolds. How disturbances affect me and how I deal with them subconsciously. What it means to be honest to yourself and that working on your mind is demanding and tiresome, but rewarding all the same. I discovered the beauty in community, friendship, family and love and began to appreciate and nourish my relationships, sending random texts of gratefulness to friends or heart emojis to family members without explanation when I thought of them and my heart warmed. Making things my own filled me with inspiration and provided a creative outlet. It made and still makes me happy, so I made my apartment my home by creating an extension of my soul, sticking chips of my mind onto the blank wall, buying 250 glow in the dark stickers to create a starry night above my bed, spilling my reflections into journals.
I realized that maybe the meaning of life is love. Romantic, family, friendship, self and stranger type of love. Love between humans, any kind. If you take away love, all the pillars of your life would crack and crumble, because what glues them together is love, empathy, compassion. What would an accomplishment mean without anybody who can celebrate it with you? What would a career be without anybody who you can enjoy your success with? I am not advocating for the necessity of an official relationship, but even a friendly neighbor, a good friend or your grandfather could be the glue that holds up your pillars and gives them meaning.
Anyway. I haven’t been alone in a while now and this is the first of a couple of nights that I will be. It seemed daunting to me first- my semester at university is over, most people are away or preoccupied, my boyfriend included and I would have to deal with filling my day with myself. What seemed daunting to me feels like a chance now. Get inspired in boredom and idleness, write and do things you can only do by yourself- read, watch, listen to the world around you. Write, write, write. Force yourself to sit with yourself and tune into existing as a whole human, not needing outward definition to live fulfilled. This might sound a bit esoteric, but its surviving this ”waking dream” and enjoying it I believe. And it’s what my first year on my own in a strange city, surrounded by new people taught me.
Bye For Now
