Four Elements of Living Alone

1.

There’s an island six miles off the coast of my New England hometown. Last night I dreamt I was standing on the mainland with my mother, father, and brother, looking out to sea, which involves, by default, looking at this island. It was very sunny and we might have been simply relaxing on the beach, chatting about the week’s plans. That is to say, everything felt normal until the island six miles out began to invert, to rock side to side as if it were a giant cruise ship sinking. I pointed to it. 

I think it’s just a trick of the light, you know how that happens, my mother said. That does happen. Depending on things like: air quality, water temperature, tides, storms. The island sometimes looks like it has very large cliffs falling into the ocean, like the Cliffs of Moher or the White Cliffs of Dover. In reality it’s just a long sand bar; it has some ledges but no cliffs like the other side of the Atlantic. But it does take that shape sometimes.  

No, I replied, it’s rocking. It looked like a full ship now, like the Titanic with a bright red hull and lights on in the windows. It plunged up and then back down, creating huge waves that froze into ice as they crested. We were all staring at it now. What had seemed to be a cloud earlier materialized now as a giant hammer-shaped airplane in the air above the island; it was controlling the rocking of the island-boat.

Do you think we’re dreaming? I asked, and then it became immediately clear to all of us. 
Yes, we’re all dreaming simultaneously, my mother said confidently, we need to all wake ourselves up.

I nodded and closed my eyes. I felt the rocking and, very briefly, I was on the island, plunging up through ice toward the plane, and then I forced my eyes open and found my pillow.

The birdsong outside sounded like an alarm clock recording, which is to say it sounded fake. Something fell in my kitchen and I wondered, not for the first time that night, if someone had broken into my apartment. But it was just me. There was no island, no ship, no ice. My family was not with me. I considered what I would do if they had all dreamt it as well. I considered looking for a webcam or a recent photo to reassure me that the island was still there, six miles off my hometown.   

2.

Much like the ocean, much like the temperatures in the Arctic, loneliness is on the rise. I read this in one of those promoted thinkpiece essays, and then I heard it in a bluegrass song. More people are alone now, the marriage rate is falling, and people are anxious about the world. I railed against the whole idea. Just because someone is alone doesn’t mean they are lonely. Loneliness is a negative feeling. Let’s not stigmatize being alone! I yelled at my mother through the phone. I poured coffee out of my single-serving French Press and reheated pasta from the night before. My compost bucket is mainly coffee grounds. The thing about living alone is that it’s not necessary to keep a particularly organized living space because no one else will see it. It’s all just about how much disorder you can handle in your life, personally. It turns out, personally, I can handle quite a lot of disordered sweaters on my floor.  

It is unseasonably hot but I consider an early morning hike on Saturday. An important part of alone-but-not-lonely involves planning elaborate events for yourself to do by yourself. It almost always involves a thermos of coffee and a notebook, but those are just my own personal weapons of choice. My friend Megan’s weapons include baths and candles. I’d include a dog in my list but the condo association whose basement I rent strictly forbids animals on the premises. I signed a contract three years ago, back when I thought I’d only live here for a year. The thing about years is they just fly by, especially when you are so busy with morning hikes and evening pasta-bakes and keeping your coffee grounds out of landfills.

3.

I was thinking recently that the wind these past four years had really picked up. I mentioned this to several different people – coworkers and my running group and my parents. I was convinced that wind was related to climate change, and that the earth, as a whole, had gotten windier. It woke me up sometimes, throwing garbage cans against my window and shrieking around the corner of the building. It seemed like everywhere I went I felt the wind, but I could find no proof of its connection to climate change. All I ever heard was wind, even when I played music to try to drown it out. 

Actually, my coworker said as we jogged along the sidewalk, that’s maybe one of those weather versus climate things. 
I was not satisfied with this explanation. 
I heard, he continued, that weather forecasts have been extremely inaccurate – more so even than normal – because there aren’t as many planes flying now. Planes collect weather data during their trips, so now we don’t have all that data.
I nearly stopped running. I looked at him. This had not occurred to me and I told him it was a really fun fact. I already knew this was something I would relay to multiple people in the very near future. When I first started working with this man he lived alone too. Now he has a live-in girlfriend, and previously on this run he told me everything they’ve planted in their garden this spring. It includes a banana tree with inedible bananas. 
What is an inedible banana? I asked. Is it poisonous? 
I don’t know, he answered, that’s just what it said on the tag. Inedible bananas. 

4.

There is a chunk of what appears to be Himalayan salt in the garden outside my window. Or it could be rose quartz, but Himalayan salt is so trendy these days. I didn’t put it there, but it’s not really my garden. It’s the garden that belongs to the condo association whose basement I rent. The basement used to be the Groundskeeper’s apartment, so historically I suppose I am connected to this garden. I’m no Groundskeeper though.

The other day I was walking aimlessly around the neighborhood when I saw two plants on the curb. FREE TOMATO PLANTS, said the cardboard sign sticking out of one. I took my headphones out and stood there for a while, debating the plants. I’m not a gardener but I do like tomatoes. I didn’t want this plant to go to waste. Was this a trick? A test? A command – did the tomato plants require freeing? I lifted the plant with the sign in it, moved the sign to the other pot, and walked off. It was very windy (see?) on my walk home so I had to keep my hand in front of its stem to shelter it. I have now repotted it and placed it subtly in the back of the garden, right in front of my window. What I didn’t realize until afterwards is that this means it is only six inches away from the rose quartz/salt chunk. 

The backyard garden area is also where, two winters ago, I slipped on ice and broke my shoulder. It was the first snow of the season and I didn’t realize the rain had turned to ice underneath. The condo association was supposed to shovel my pathway, or at least salt it, but they didn’t do either, and as a result they had to pay my medical bills. I have never felt quite comfortable with our relationship since, so when I saw the rose quartz lying there, part of me assumed it was some sort of talisman. That maybe one of the condo owners had put it there to curse me, to get back at me for the shoulder incident, or for failing to Keep their Grounds. I envisioned one of them visiting the Himalayan Salt shop downtown, thinking oh, she wants salt? I’ll give her salt, and then throwing it at my window. (There is no evidence that this object ever hit my window, and the bounce trajectory wouldn’t suggest it did, although I was never good at physics.) 

So whatever it is, however it came to be near me, it’s here now with the garden growing ragged around it. It sits peacefully next to my tomato plant which, while maybe not thriving in its new home, is not dead yet.