Bea
Lovely and thoughtful. I feel very safe with this one. As someone fully homebound by chronic illness, I listen periodically when I start struggling with feeling isolated. Gives me a sense of peace, like a warm hug and a pat on the back
The words and music to the videopoem of the same name (by Andrea Dorfman). Music and words by Tanya Davis with recording and additional instruments by Timothy Crabtree.
lyrics
If you are, at first, lonely - be patient.
If you've not been alone much or if, when you were, you weren't okay with it then just wait,
you'll find it's fine to be alone...
once you're embracing it.
We could start with the acceptable places: the bathroom, the coffee shop, the library.
Where you can stall and read the paper,
where you can get your caffeine fix and sit and stay there,
where you can browse the stacks and smell the books
you're not supposed to talk much anyway,
so it's safe there.
There's also the gym.
If you're shy you can hang out with yourself in the mirrors, you can put headphones in.
And there's public transportation
- because we all gotta go places -
and there's prayer and meditation
no one will think less if you're hanging out with your breath
seeking peace and salvation.
Start simple,
things you may have previously avoided based on your avoid-being-alone principles.
The lunch counter, where you will be surrounded by chow-downers,
employees that only have an hour
and their spouses work across town
and so they, like you, will be alone.
Resist the urge to hang out with your cell phone.
When you are comfortable with eat-lunch-and-run, take yourself out for dinner,
a restaurant with linen and silverware.
You're no less intriguing a person when you're eating solo dessert
and cleaning the whipped cream from the dish with your finger;
in fact, some people at full tables will wish they were where you were.
Go to the movies
where it is dark and soothing
alone in your seat amidst a fleeting community.
And, then, take yourself out dancing,
to a club where no one knows you
stand on the outside of the floor
until the lights convince you more and more
and the music shows you.
Dance like no one's watching
('cause they are probably not)
and, if they are, assume it is with best and human intentions,
the way bodies move genuinely to beats is, after all, gorgeous and affecting.
Dance until you're sweating
and beads of perspiration remind you of life's best things,
down your back like a brook of blessings.
Go to the woods alone and the trees and squirrels will watch for you.
Go to an unfamiliar city, roam the streets,
there are always statues to talk to
and benches made for sitting
give strangers a shared existence
if only for a minute
and these moments can be so uplifting
and the conversations that you get in
by sitting alone on benches
might have never happened
had you not been there by yourself.
Society is afraid of alone though,
like lonely hearts are wasting away in basements,
like people must have problems if, after awhile, nobody is dating them
But alone is a freedom that breathes easy and weightless
and lonely is healing if you make it.
You could stand, swathed by groups and mobs or hold hands with your partner
look both further and farther
in the endless quest for company,
but no one's in your head
and by the time you translate your thoughts some essence of them may be lost
or perhaps it is just kept,
perhaps in the interest of loving oneself,
perhaps all of those sappy slogans
from preschool over
to high school's groaning
were tokens for holding the lonely at bay.
'cause if you're happy in your head then solitude is blessed and alone is okay.
It's okay if no one believes like you
all experiences unique, no one has the same synapses
can't think like you
for this be relieved,
keeps it interesting, life's magic things in reach.
And it doesn't mean you aren't connected, that community's not present.
Just take the perspective you get
from being one person alone in one head
and feel the effects of it
Take silence and respect it.
If you have an art that needs a practice, stop neglecting it.
If your family doesn't get you
or a religious sect is not meant for you
don't obsess about it.
You could be, in an instant, surrounded, if you need it.
If your heart is bleeding make the best of it
supported by 5 fans who also own “How to be Alone”
Such a special album I struggle to think of what to say about it. At times I'm afraid or put off even listening to it and sometimes its the most comforting thing in the world. I got this from a vinyl code and I only listened to that physical copy of it the morning after the night my dog died. The first time I ever lost someone that meant the world to me and it was the first time I didn't cry to it. This album is beautiful and if youre reading this, you are loved memon_dayz
supported by 4 fans who also own “How to be Alone”
Speaking as an emeritus professor I'm glad we didn't lose you to a bachelor's degree in psychology -- there's a surplus of those, and a library card can be as valuable as any undergraduate degree -- no, I'm glad you're producing your urgent and timeless music. We need it more than a clutch of degrees. Reuben Roth
Portland singer/songwriter delivers a gorgeous Christmas EP, fashioned in the lush style of classics by Bing Crosby and Johnny Mathis. Bandcamp New & Notable Nov 23, 2020
supported by 4 fans who also own “How to be Alone”
Found this album magically and have listened to it about 100 times in the months since. I love the songwriting and storytelling on this record. Also, living in rural nova scotia, there’s few artists who are singing about what it’s like out here. Sandy Naorin