The Eye of the Beholder

The silence wraps around me like an eiderdown quilt. Alone. I am alone. The children, all six of them, are off at school. 

Even Timmy, whom I think of in my mind as Tiny Tim- the boy in the Scrooge story, finally off to kindergarten. Sam, my husband, is playing the country lawyer in the little southern town where he intends to eventually ease into retirement. It is a sweet town, on the edge of a river that flows into bay, then to the Atlantic Ocean. As my New York friend Lib said as I was leaving, my face tearstained, my hands clutched together:

"If you have to live in a small Souther town at least it is one by the ocean."

When Sam told me of his plan to move to the South, I panicked.

I am the ultimate image of a Yankee. I speak quickly and loudly, inserting my opinions without being asked to participate. My Southern acquaintances-I cannot call them friends yet. Hattie, the the dear woman who lives nextdoor and is the sage of all things Southern-assures me that will take years.

“Just remember, darling, until they invite you for the third time, it is not a real invitation.”

True to my Northern sensibilities, I dove right into my new situation. I joined the local church, the one Hattie suggested-and volunteered for the social committee. I became room mother for several of my children’s classes. I volunteered for Room in the Inn which offers a meal and a bed to disadvantaged persons in cold weather. I even joined the Southern Belles bridge group. 

Alone-alone-alone. I am alone. No one tugging at my skirt, no one missing their math book, their gym shorts, the overdue report on tree frogs. The phone turned off so I cannot receive a new task or need. Just me- all alone.

The Southern Ladies would not believe how much I relish this aloneness. I have projected the image of the perfect hostess, the ultimate Mom, the one who brings the cookies, volunteers to be chaperon for the museum trips, plans the birthday parties.

Now, I am alone. Even Sam’s and his colleagues don’t understand that about me. How much I long to be alone. I’m always the life of the party, actually the one who plans the party, then pulls it off. 

I rise from the sofa and pad through the house in my stocking feet. Pretty, the calico cat, rubs against me. I guess its OK to have a cat around. She isn’t a person after all. I slip on my gardening boots and walk into the backyard. It is a mess, overgrown plants going to seed, weeds spouting everywhere. Like Scarlet O’Hara, I’ll think about that tomorrow. Today, I am alone.

I sit on a garden bench beneath the massive Live Oak in the center of the garden. The tree was the main reason I insisted on buying the ramshackle low country house. If I’m going to live in a small Southern town, my home should at least have a defining Southern feature. Spanish Moss drapes from its limbs. I like to tell people that Spanish moss is neither moss nor is it Spanish. It is not a moss. It is an epiphyte. Real moss clings to and takes its nourishment from the tree. Spanish Moss just hangs there, taking its nourishment from the air. I’m like that-just taking my nourishment from those around me.

The tree was there when we moved in. It takes up most of the yard, but who could get rid of such a venerable tree? We built the yard around it-flowers on the edge-an area for the children to play and for us to sit and contemplate beneath its boughs. 

Th tree’s branches touch the ground in spots, allowing what might eventually become new trees to spring up. Will my children gain enough nourishment from me to grow strong and become adults in their own right? 

There is a show on TV called Alone. A group of individuals are dropped in the Arctic for a specified length of time—each of them alone. They are tasked with surviving for a set length of time. They must build a shelter, figure out how to get food, fight the elements, avoid predators, protect the food sources. I am fascinated by this show. 

I doubt if I could survive a weekend in the wild, especially in a harsh, unforgiving environment. I doubt I could survive a weekend alone in a fabulous resort. Although I believe I crave solitude, I wither when it is present for too long. One time I rented a house directly on the beach for a month. I lasted two weeks. How many long walks by the ocean can one take?

I crave contact and company. The Alone show does not answer the most burning question: What do they do with themselves at night? During the day, they have to trek to the edge of the quickly freezing water and pull in the Gill net, trudge through deepening snow to check their snares, find increasingly rare wood for for the fire, fight off predators determined to steal their food or even take their life.

But what about at night? What do they do huddling in their makeshift shelters with no radio, no TV, no iPhone, not even any electricity. I’ll tell you what they do. They slowly starve. The show seems to take great pleasure in displaying their ever-shrinking bodies. That is the ultimate aloneness.

Even in this, my small moment of solitude, I am not truly alone. In the distance, I hear church bells, a melodic rendition of Rock of Ages. On the other side of the hedge, I hear traffic—the blare of a car horn, the call of a small child, the bark of a dog. Overhead a jet slices through the blue vault of the sky, a flock of geese form a ragged vee. In the distance, thunder rolls as storm clouds mass. I think of the Johnny Cash’s song Ghost Riders in the Sky. My small moment of isolation is not even isolation in the true sense of the word. Pretty jumps up in my lap. I pet her silken fur. 

A door slams inside my low-country ranch house. Peter, my oldest, is home. His voice, recently dropped so much that he sounds like a man, echoes through the house. 

“Hey Mom, I’m home. What’s to eat?”

I push Pretty from my lap. She complains loudly then stalks away. I remove the boots and enter the house.