Nomads, Sentinels and Persephone
Contributor
Written by
Ana Maria Jomolca
February 2014
Contributor
Written by
Ana Maria Jomolca
February 2014

I don’t know anyone outside of monks and Charles Manson who spends as much time alone as I do. I’m sure they exist but they’re not within [my] earshot or sight line. Even the homeless are out there meeting new people every day.

I nearly always feel as though I am working and creating in a vacuum. This, I’ve heard and read ad nauseum, goes with the territory of writing and the initial tremors of any creative process. That moment between vacant and percolating. Between idea and form. How to be at peace in those moments when it is just you and your creating; whether sitting with a character who just barged into your kitchen and caught you staring at a blank page, or the countless hours that elapse as you draw the same set of lips and fists over and over and once again because it is not quite right, yet. Because it has not captured precisely the anguish, rage, joy, defeat, triumph, helplessness, the all and all-at-onceness that has your protagonist heaving and punching at the air. 

Every morning I look out my fish bowl and see the scatter of ants moving to and fro on the street below; people out there with jobs, steady jobs, working, showing up for board meetings, day care open houses, giving speeches, breeding and adopting, ending world hunger, boarding planes, always on their way to somewhere and something important. People expected by other people and on time.

I watch intently, pointing at them, perplexed and outraged, shouting to no one, “People are out there, circulating, In Life. Goddamnit!” Or so it seems.

It's hard to feel like an active participant in the world when you spend days, weeks, months with no job to turn up for, no rehearsal that expects you eagerly at six, no blog demanding your post, no deadline to meet, no contract to negotiate, no pickup van waiting for you on the corner of 96th and Broadway to drive you to set, where costume, makeup, cast and crew await you daily, weekly and for the whole of three seasons.  

Days bleed into more days. Hours go by, accelerating exponentially as you try to practice your craft alone in your chamber.  You finally look up and see that day is now night and once again you race to the window to bookend your horror. They are back: little dots moving through charcoal slush and cracked sidewalks, thin dots rushing home racing past thicker, slower dots, all size and shaped dots ending another long, busy day. And you can’t figure whether you are starting or ending your day. You have no punch clock. No witness. Every time you tell yourself you are part of the pulse, beating along with others and contributing to the greater, lesser, or any whole, you feel like a cheap con, unable to keep from staring at the long stretches of inertia and solitude, wondering where everyone is, has been, whom with and why.  

I wonder what Philip Seymour Hoffman experienced in his moments alone. I wonder if he wondered whether someone, somewhere, now or ever is crouched in their bathroom, folded into himself, feeling this. Then the stark truth hits me: no matter how gifted and successful, nor the severity of emotional intelligence & understanding of human condition and frailty--no matter how much the world recognizes and reveres you, no matter how much you love and are loved--we all have that moment when we are alone with no one but ourselves. And it. When the party is over, when the ceremony ends, when the candles burn out, when the band packs it up and the guests trickle down to none. When it is just you and the empty courtyard, the empty room, the empty bed, the empty emptiness.  Do we dare stay with this or do we race off, chasing the next party, the next crowd, the next next

We are constantly in a state of not knowing how we are doing and looking toward others to confirm or disprove it. Even the accolades eventually die down to whatever my default setting is: what I believe to be true about myself in those moments alone.  

If others never see the painting or read the poem or hear the melody or monologue, has it no merit? If there is no witness to the unexpected and paralyzing grief one feels for the loss of a man one has never met, is the grief unearned and therefore unwarranted? Is it not still grief? Is it even mine? Can we feel as valid in our private, unwitnessed, unpeopled moments? When the text refuses to reply and the call back never calls back, can we friend and like ourselves? Be our own FaceBook?

To find balance between solitude and collaboration. To be at peace during the aloneness, during the imagining, creating, or downright nothingness, the blank page, the absence of idea, inspiration gone AWOL, and the inability to express or express accurately. To give space and breathing room to this ‘feeling disconnected and excluded from the world,’ all the human traffic and activity (and man can NYC crank up the hustle-and-bustle-movers-and-shakers-this-could-be-you-but-hey-out-of-sight-out-of-mind storyline to ear deafening pitch), while my Persephone submerges into the underworld to restore and reconnect with the true source of all creativity; the vast & limitless imagination, the voice and impulse that is neither touched nor influenced by anything.  

Perhaps that is the calling and demand of the artist: taking on dare after dare to stand firm in the face of anguish before that anguish turns to beauty and relief in the poem, the lyric, Act III. To embrace the anguish which is the beauty and not an ambush. Might that be the greatest thing we can bring to ourselves, to the collective, and to all collaborations? 

Mary McCarthy once wrote "We are the hero of our own story."  

Perhaps that lone figure peering out her window is really a sentinel perched hundreds of feet above, observing the hoard of singulars among the masses shuffling across gravel and concrete, struggling to connect to something, someone, anyone, and anything. Those nobodies that fail [again and again] to make the daily headlines; those we pass quickly and step over on the street. And from her ledge, the dare steps forth and reveals the task: to guard, document, and verify life and living and honor it quietly in her journal, sketch pad, or an email she had no intention of writing. To recognize that she is both the writer and the written about. And all that is asked of her is: Pay Attention.

Let's be friends

The Women Behind She Writes

519 articles
12 articles

Featured Members (7)

123 articles
392 articles
54 articles
60 articles

Featured Groups (7)

Trending Articles

Comments
  • Ana Maria Jomolca

    "I almost wish it was all crap. It wouldn't be so seductive." Loved this. Yes, it's so much easier to write someone or something off entirely. Similar to the clarity and simpleness of those moments when I feel I have no choice, there's no alternative but to do XYZ.. It's almost--no, not almost--it IS a relief. The humble reminder that nothing and no one is all good or all bad.
    Much peace to you on the book tour and beyond,

  • Pamela Olson

    This is my favorite thing I've read in a while. Thanks for sharing a piece of your solitude with us. I feel what you describe often. My "drug of choice" to keep from experiencing it (and thus from finishing the books I'm working on in a timely fashion) is an internet that's full of meaningless distractions but also funny stories and lovely pictures of friends and family, news relevant to my work and writing, and wonderful pieces like this. I almost wish it was all crap. It wouldn't be so seductive.

    I'm on a book tour now (a good excuse not to write, since I'm more busy, off-balance, and exhausted than usual -- but I should be writing anyway). When I get home -- and hopefully even before then -- I'll start writing 1,000 words a day, even if they're crap. At that rate, I should finish the first draft of my novel in 60 days. (I already have 20,000 of the words written.) Revising for me is infinitely easier than drafting.

    And I'll have to tell myself that feeling of panic when I'm writing -- that I'm "just wasting time" and "not really working" -- is just part of the price I pay for doing what I must do. And I'm not alone on that.

  • Ana Maria Jomolca

    Thank you Wendy.  Those monks sure got some mileage in this piece and discussion!  Every single post here reminds me that the very things that make me feel disconnected are also the very things that connect me to others.  This week found me dwelling indoors, finding comfort and solace in swimming around in my fish bowl..  I'm laughing at what I once said:  If I didn't have my life, I'd want it. 

  • Thank you for sharing your reflections. I believe many of us resonate. I think this feeling of being solitary while the bustle of life goes on around us is the reason some of us become writers....we are already in our heads and our imaginations even as children and we want to connect. Words are our gift. To find meaning, to have a voice, to reach out. To pay attention, bear witness to our inner world as well as the outer, is a natural part of who we are. For me, the good news is that as I have gotten older and as of necessity I teach in order to earn enough money to keep on writing, I embrace the solitude, I crave it, whether or not it is productive. The anguish of not experiencing that bridge from the creative act to the readers is real....but many artists have experienced that as well. I am grateful that life expectancy has gone up so at least I have a shot at it!

    Your essay also makes me think of monasteries and convents. Do they make the world a better place by being in prayer? I think so. I think our work has meaning in itself as we wrestle with communicating the human experience.

  • Kaye Linden

    Then I start wondering why I am doing this, where it is going, am I making the world a better place by writing alone and the stream of consciousness goes on......... Kaye

  • Karen A Szklany Writing

    I can definitely relate to this feeling. After I have spent a length of time engaged in solitary activity, I encounter the feeling of somehow being out of step with neighbors who see me across the table, in the friendly silence between conversations, and decide it is best to retreat to their own home territory than to risk diving into new, unfamiliar conversational territory. I have compassion on this (vs. taking it personally).

    Love the new perspective on Persephone. I can relate to that, too. Thank you for sharing your experience. You are not alone. I think we have lots of sister and brother writers who think and feel what you have described here in your blog post.

  • Kandace Chapple

    You made me think of things in a whole new way - very interesting and so true!

  • Ana Maria Jomolca

    Thanks Kamy.  You think you're alone and then THIS happens.  I'm in great company in this aloneness..

  • Kamy Wicoff Brainstorming

    Ana Maria thank you so much for sharing this with us. I love the way you capture the anxieties of being a writer, outside of the regular 9-5 -- it's something many people think would be the best thing about the job, but it often leaves writers feeling lonely and in a constant state of crisis about whether they are really "working" or not. I love your honesty and the writing is beautiful. :)

  • Toi Thomas

    Wow, there is so much here; I can't respond to it all. However, I will admit that I too have trouble finding balance. I want to be able to create and write and do what everyone else does in their daily life, but I can't; it's too much. I would love to be validated by my peers, but I realize that considering the very definition of peers, that I just don't have many. I don't mean to shut out the world. I try to reach out in my own special way, but others just don't seem to acknowledge it, so I write more and stay within my comfort zone and hope that someone reads one of my stories and connects with me that way. I'll keep trying to reach out with my words and my actions and we'll just have to see what happens.

  • Ana Maria Jomolca

    Hi Kaye, Thanks for responding.  Good point about the monks.  Guess it's just me and Charles..ha ha.

  • Kaye Linden

    So true.  Thank you for this article.  Do we need validation from the world or is our writing world expansive enough to encompass joy?  P.s.   Even monks eat with other monks...    Kaye Linden