A friend is in town for medical tests. We had a pasta lunch in the complex where he’s being probed and scanned. He said he hadn’t seen so many doctors since he was quarantined for tuberculosis as a ...

This past week I went to a Coldplay concert. I don't think I've ever experienced music that allows me to feel my own solitude and my sole existence within a larger community of people simultaneously ...

One of the perks about retirement is you don’t have to bolt out of bed like a jack in the box as soon as you hear your alarm. In fact, most days I don’t even set the alarm. Indeed, life is all ...

I like being alone. Perhaps it’s a taste I’ve acquired through a lifetime of feeling estranged from the world around me: I’m a little shy, significantly aloof and often bored with what the people ...

A candle flickers on the coffee table, sending a wisp of smoke into an empty, white-washed room. Foreign noises creak outside. I stare at the blank walls and the pictures scattered on the floor that ...

Whenever I am overwhelmed by the world and I need a quieting of inner and outer voices, I seek refuge in solitude. When I have a moment of inner silence, the spinning worries on my mind and the ...

This post is part two of a series. Solitude is not the same as loneliness. Solitude is a positive state: the time and space to enjoy being with oneself — time out, or some space to drop out of the rat ...