In reality it has looked (and felt) somewhat like this:
Which is simultaneously fun and terrifying. I can’t just “wait for inspiration to strike” anymore. In less than two weeks, I’ll be submitting my first piece for workshop, and I have no words on the page. Not a title, not a single idea. Working on this blog is the next best thing I can think of for getting the creative juices flowing, which isn’t the most promising of beginnings.
That means that instead of working on the one of the few (desperate and pathetically few) ideas I have rattling around in my skull, I’m going to talk about something else that I’ve been feeling: loneliness. It’s a feeling that I’m not used to experiencing – at least not in this way – and I think it’s an interesting avenue to explore, because it’s terrifying and, apparently, something everyone feels.
I’m used to being alone. After the isolation from the pandemic, I think that everyone (to some extent) is used to being alone. What I’m not used to is feeling lonely when surrounded by people. This week has been one of the most social weeks of my entire life. I’ve met dozens of people, memorised names, faces, hometowns – not to mention professions, undergraduate degrees, the names of pets, who does and doesn’t have siblings, and a myriad of other information. I’ve met some of the most interesting people in the world – who else would travel to Scotland to pursue a degree in writing? – and yet, when I get back to my flat, I feel empty. I unlace my boots, take a hot shower, make a cup of tea, and I feel lonely.
The easiest remedy would be to go back out because when I’m moving, I feel fine. When I’m at the pub, or a cafe, or even sitting on a bench trying to soak up the sun like a lizard, I feel fine. But we can’t all live our lives in constant motion; sometimes, we have to be alone. And when I’m alone, the intrusive thoughts come in:
What if you aren’t good enough? What if everyone hates you? Remember Tuesday night, when you were at the pub, and you joked about midwifing goats? What if they think that’s really, extremely super weird? Who the hell says something like that with people they just met?
Take a deep breath. It’ll be fine.
I’m surrounded by people who all want to be here, many of whom have travelled long distances to do so. We’re all talented enough to get in to the programme. I was talented enough to get into this programme. We’re all feeling some extent of homesickness, and imposter syndrome, and nobody is really looking at me that closely. I put on my smile, and my public face, and I bundle into my sweaters and scarves and create a façade that I think is interesting. That I desperately hope is interesting. I want to make friends, because the world is full of fascinating people and stories and humans who are wonderful and empathetic. And maybe because when I’m with other people, even if it’s quietly reading in a café or library, I feel like part of something larger.
Belonging to a pack is human nature, but for the first time in four years, I’m occupying a different role. I’m one of the social ones. I’m going out and doing things. I’m doing my best to initiate plans (or I was, until I came down with the dreaded “freshers’ flu” and put myself into a combination of isolation and bedrest). I’m assimilating to a new pack, finding my niche to occupy, filling the void created by an eight-hour time difference with new people.
All of this because feeling lonely isn’t the same as being alone.
Which leads into meeting Jim Little at the Edinburgh Farmers’ Market, because that was the highlight of my week, bar none.
Jim Little is a soap maker from Caurnie who loves conversation. He apologised profusely to me when I stood in line at his stall; “My wife tells me I talk too much,” he said. “I just like meeting people!”
I was delighted to humour him and had the pleasure of watching him come alive. For ten minutes, he talked, and I listened. He grew up making soap with his father, pursued a degree in chemistry, and then returned to the family business. He effortlessly carried the conversation, bouncing from asking where I came from to what I was studying to recommending bars of soap. When I asked him the stock question of which soap he thought was his best, he told me it was like asking him to choose a favourite child, joked that it was “whichever [soap] he had the most of!”, and then recommended the “Lime and Thyme”, all in rapid succession.
It was an incredible experience – his enthusiasm was buoyant, and still almost impossible to describe. Days later, I’m still trying to unravel everything he did and didn’t say. I left with three bars of soap (“Lime and Thyme”, of course, but also a bar of lavender, and one of lemongrass) and a local newspaper, where his soapmaking business had a featurette. He made sure to turn it to the page where the article was located before tucking it into the little paper bag I carried away from the market. I made sure to hang it up on the pinboard above my desk, for a few reasons:
First and foremost, because it was one of my first “local” experiences, where I felt welcomed into the community. I was at the market early enough that there were few tourists; everyone there was local, either long-time residents of Edinburgh or students brave enough to be awake on the weekend before ten AM.
Secondly, and maybe more importantly, it’s stuck with me because Jim Little found meaning in making soap. A seventy-something year old man was living his life – his best life – making and selling soap, giving demonstrations, operating booths at farmers’ markets around Scotland, and seemingly waking up every day full of vigour and enthusiasm. I don’t know if soapmaking is his only job; it was certainly all he wanted to talk about, and I loved hearing about it. Regardless, I decided, when I got home, that I wanted that energy in my life. The sort of confidence that comes from knowing a craft, loving a craft, and being willing to share it with the world.
I guess there’s a lesson in here somewhere, wrapped up in feeling lonely despite being surrounded by people who share my passion for writing, meeting a soap maker who remained enthusiastic for his craft after seventy years of what I might’ve once called monotony, and desperately trying to get words on the page. I’m a writer; it isn’t my place to say what the lesson is, exactly. Only to put the words down and try to convey some sense of meaning.
Here’s to hoping that next week, I can have something more coherent to say. For now, I’m making my third cup of lemon ginger tea, taking another shot of cough syrup, and heating up my hot water bottles for another day of “tomorrow, definitely tomorrow, I’ll feel better!”
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