On Solitude

In the last few blog posts I’ve written about words that have popped up in my head and not left until I aired them out: grace, grief, gratitude.

Today I have another word in my head: solitude. According to Merriam-Webster, it’s the state of being alone or remote from society. Solitude explicitly means that you relish the lack of people and need that quiet space to create and be. Though I would note that there are many ways to be remote from society that don’t require you to move to a nunnery or a monastery (though a few excellent books have explored these solitudes—try Charlotte Wood’s Stone Yard Devotional or Catherine Coldstream’s Cloistered: My Years as a Nun).

M-W also defines solitude as a lonely place. This doesn’t fit with my idea of solitude at all—lonely suggests you wish you were with other people, while solitude means you’re comfortable on your own.

Solitude can simply mean staying off social media for a few days or a week. It can mean taking a couple of hours a day to yourself to do something for/with yourself instead of other people. Or it can be a retreat, where you’re on your own for a week or two at a time. A friend of mine goes to an off-grid Forest Service cabin every few months for two to three days of solitude and sitting by the river. Solitude can be taking a forest hike by yourself for a couple of hours. I’m an avid believer in solitude, to the point that if I don’t get a certain amount of it, I begin to crave it in the marrow of my bones.

Solitude can be punctuated by gregarious moments—you might, for instance, feel like going for a drink with someone after a long day on your own. This is perfectly fine, but I think solitude is an important part of being human, as it’s how we process life without interruption by others, how we access the deep well of our being, how we make sense of our thoughts and figure out who we are. Not in relation to others, but wholly in and of ourselves.

I need solitude to do the hard work of improving my writing skills. Quiet to see the words in my mind and let them coalesce into something readable. Maybe even publishable.

For 2026, I plan to use my blog as a way to hone my writing skills, to write more lyrically than matter-of-factly. To catch the stray leaves of inspiration that fall from the winter-stripped alders and willows and turn them into an inspiration tea. To that end, I’m going to post biweekly instead of weekly, to give myself more time to pull a piece together to the best of my ability. Weekly posts can be hard to keep up with: you finish one and then it’s already time to write the next one, with not quite enough time for reflection in between.

I also have a secondary goal. I want time to work on my next book, and writing weekly blog posts doesn’t allow for that. I don’t have much functional time these days, so I must be careful with how I spend that energy. What is it most important for me to do, and how can I do it?

I’ve decided that the book is most important, but the blog is key for sharing my practice, for opening a window into the obscure world of a writer. My blog can move in tandem with my book, even allowing for some cross-pollination. Perhaps there’s an idea from a blog post that I want to explore in more detail in my book, or a topic from my book that I think blog readers would be interested in.

I’m not disappearing, but I’m reclaiming my solitude. I’m reclaiming my time (as Maxine Waters would say) to think about what I want to say and how I want to say it. To write messy first drafts and think my way through knotty essays. To go for a hike in the woods. To offset that solitude by hanging out with my family, watching Netflix or talking politics and books.  

I’ve applied for a writing residency that would feed that solitude – we’ll see if I’m successful. Otherwise it’s just me, in my office with Silah on the floor beside me, and the page with its blinking cursor. Waiting for me to begin.