Lifestyle

Alone.

Published

Claire Manship belted songs out the window. Ketaki Chowkhani began barking at a stray puppy. Blake Mitchell performed in drag.

As millions of people grapple with isolation in a pandemic, those who live alone face a particular kind of solitude.

More people live alone now than at any other time in history, a seismic shift from even a half-century ago, and one fueled largely by women’s economic rise.

Being alone and being lonely are not the same thing, of course, and many people who live by themselves spend little time alone.

Until, perhaps, a pandemic hits.

Weeks or months into the stay-at-home orders worldwide, we wanted to know how solo dwellers were faring. What were they doing to keep themselves occupied? What did they most long for? What did they feel liberated to live without?

More than 2,000 readers shared their stories and their photos. Here are some of them.

— Jessica Bennett, Daniel Jones and Anya Strzemien

I’ve been living with and serving others for 58 of my almost 64 years on earth, and living solo is pure bliss. Frankly, I’m the envy of plenty of friends, like women who can’t talk to me on the phone when their husbands are in the same room.

As a teacher, I spend a few hours a day performing a virtual root canal trying to get my high school kids to engage with a computer. In the intervening hours, I do lots of cool things. Jigsaw puzzles make me want to drink gin from the dog bowl, but I’ve tried knitting, sketching, solitaire and solo karaoke, which is hilarious. I’ve never been happier.

Our consumer insanity has come to a screeching halt. Despite the suffering, there is so much beauty right now in the world. In my little space and silence, there is nothing I want or need. I’m good.

— Phyllis Coletta, 63, Seattle

Nebulous fear and constant dread. The sense that a lot is going on beyond the surrounding walls, though nothing changes much from day to day. You have little control. Everyone is suspect. Everyone hoards toilet paper.

In jail, where I spent six weeks for a second DWI, and in isolation, where I have now been for eight weeks, I have witnessed humans’ ugly behavior as well as tremendous acts of generosity and tenderness. The woman who clandestinely delivered a bag of Cheetos to the hungry, expectant mother in the adjoining section of the jail is not unlike the owner of the local pizza parlor donating items to the local food pantry. Both are moved to help their less fortunate neighbors in a time of great need.

— Everson Kalman, 40, Oneonta, N.Y.

Introvert that I am, I was made for this. I had an employer who continued to pay me as I worked from home. I had Wi-Fi. I have no children. A friend shared his Netflix password. I was #blessed.

Anxiety soon descended.

I thought of all the couples having quarantine sex. Oh, to be able to squeeze in a quickie between Zoom meetings. My ex reached out during this time to “check on me.” I downloaded Bumble for the fourth time.

There is a sense that this quarantine will further cement my singleness. Social distancing makes forming meaningful connections feel almost impossible.

I couldn’t sleep one night before I went grocery shopping. How will I haul two weeks’ worth of groceries without a car? How will I get groceries if I’m too ill to go? I’m so tired of my own cooking. I’m so tired of doing everything alone.

My 32-year-old self dug out the teddy bear I’ve had since I was 6 months old. As I lay awake cradling my stuffed animal, with a guided meditation from YouTube, I couldn’t help but concede that the tightness in my chest would have been eased if I had someone to wrap their arms around me. Perhaps I could (should?) make space for another person.

— Simone Samuels, 32, Toronto

Is there anything better in the world than holding hands? That sweet, simple gesture tells the whole story.

My husband, Mel, and I held hands on our first date. He has been gone almost 17 years now, and I think of him every time I go for a walk and every time one of our kids or grandkids reaches for my hand.

This winter, after I turned 90, coronavirus arrived. No visitors. No shared meals. No hugs or kisses and, hardest for me, no one to hold my hand. Sometimes I want to shout, “Why? What did I do?” Other times I feel so grateful for the safety of my apartment and calls from family and friends. I’ve even learned to Zoom.

I wait for the day when this quarantine is over and I can go back out into the world. And most importantly, I live for the day when I can hold the hands of those I love.

— Bette Ferber, 90, Los Angeles

I live with my family, but for the past month or so I have felt as if I’ve been alone. My mother, father and siblings are here, but we are still apart. I spend most of the time in my room, alone, but I can still hear everyone through the walls. I listen to their voices on the phone or their steps moving around.

My favorite thing is to look out the window and feel how small I am next to the world. The window in my room is right beside my desk, and when I’m getting stressed or feel like this is all too much, I can look out and forget, at least for a moment.

— Carlota Fragoso, 16, Mexico City

I knew a singalong wasn’t likely to become a neighborhood pastime. I wanted to sing anyway.

And so, one evening, I leaned out my bedroom window and started singing a rendition of “New York, New York.” My voice was ringing down the alley, and by the end of the song, neighbors were applauding from their windows and calling for an encore.

I sang for my neighbors every night for the rest of the week. I had been so alone in my apartment that it didn’t even occur to me there were hundreds of other people, sitting alone in theirs, just a few feet away.

— Claire Manship, 28, New York

I began this decade by voluntarily spending 33 days in rehab. No phones. No TV. Occasionally, staff would give us updates about the news, which is where I first heard of the coronavirus.

I relapsed an hour after being released. I moved into an Airbnb that I had booked for a month, with the intention of finding a new place to live after. The country shut down instead.

I did not have time to find an AA group. To get phone numbers, a sponsor. Meetings have moved digitally, and I don’t know how to participate in a video chat of dozens of people where everyone knows everyone and I know no one. They say successful sobriety is about community, which is the very thing Covid-19 has stripped from us.

I went to a few meetings before my city announced a stay-at-home order, but after they told us not to gather in groups of 10 or more. There would be 30 of us packed in a dirty room, sharing coffee, trying not to cough or sneeze. I was painfully aware, in those moments, that we were all willing to take a gamble on death because addiction is just as terrifying.

I am still in my temporary home. I am still alone. I am still drinking. My parents call six times a day, concerned. And I want to shake them (from six feet away) and say, “You are asking me to do something in the end of the world that I couldn’t do when everything was still held together.”

— P., 23, N.Y.

Before Covid-19, I commuted to my day job in H.R. On evenings and weekends, I performed in drag clubs around San Francisco as Mary Lou Pearl, my stage persona.

When the pandemic hit, my life, like the lives of so many, was flipped upside down. I found myself confined to my one-bedroom apartment, alone with my wigs and feelings. But then, inspiration hit. I began brainstorming ways I could recreate drag numbers at home that I had been planning to perform at the clubs.

Before I knew it, I had produced drag music video parodies of songs by some of my favorite artists: Celine Dion, Dolly Parton, Shania Twain and Dua Lipa.

— Blake Mitchell, 30, San Francisco

My goal a couple of years ago was to tell my dad, “I love you.” It might not seem like a big deal. But to those who have immigrant parents, Asian parents, any type of “We provide for you so why do we need to say it?” parents, it’s a big deal.

It has been a long journey for me toward forgiveness and compassion for my dad. As I neared 40, I hadn’t been able to reach the goal but was content enough with my intention.

Then recently, isolated by this pandemic, seeing my dad on the video screen and not knowing when I would visit my parents again, I felt my heart soften. His face, grainy and backlit, stirred something within me. As he handed back the iPad to my mom, I said, “Love you” to the gap between their hands. I didn’t know if he heard me.

Last week I said it again: “I love you, Ba.” He was turning away from the screen, but he paused, his body and voice still. He said “Goodbye” again, somewhat gruffly, perhaps an acknowledgment, but it doesn’t really matter. I did it.

How miraculous, in this small but significant way, to feel years of burden fall away. To feel love stirring within, like grace.

— Chia-Ti Chiu, 41, Brooklyn

When India went into lockdown, I fell in love with a brown stray puppy outside my window.

I would see her every day, either sleeping or quietly playing with a piece of cloth. In the first few days, I would call out to her. She would turn, a little surprised, while I waved frantically to get her attention. Since I was not sure if she was a male or female, I spied on her with a pair of binoculars. This earned me the name “pervert professor” in my friend circle.

The first sign that my love was nonreciprocal was when she began ignoring my calls. That is when I started barking at her. I can assure you, it was a very satisfying experience for me. She, on the other hand, cocked her ears and gave me a brief, shocked look.

My friends and family worried for my sanity, but they were more worried that my neighbors might hear me. My mother offered to speak to me more often on the phone. Then the unexpected happened. The puppy barked back.

— Ketaki Chowkhani, 34, Manipal, Karnataka, India

Last fall, a friend asked me: “What would you do if you had all the time and money in the world?”

“I think I’d chop onions,” I said. I had hated onions until recently, when I had finally learned how to chop them into satisfying cubes and cook the pieces down to delicious nothings in the pan.

It became my new, menial pleasure. I loved the rhythmic sounds my knife made against the chopping board as I hacked through the layers and felt the structure give way. I cut with love, and my cooking improved. Now, onions are a staple of my grocery runs.

I like to have a few reds and a bag of yellows on hand in case of minor emergencies. When the university where I teach and study moved online, I sliced the reds for use in a salad. When I discovered I had filled out the foster dog form incorrectly, I diced two and six potatoes for a Spanish tortilla.

Because my apartment is a studio, the stink of onions has permeated my living area. The only onion-free zone is the bathroom, which happens to be disproportionately large and well lit, so I’m spending an increasing amount of time in there.

It’s true that chopping raw onions can induce tears, which I view as a benefit; crying over cut onions is the best kind of crying I do these days. Their skins are the only ones that have touched mine in weeks.

— Julie Lunde, 26, Tucson, Ariz.

I sleep alone, read alone, do chores alone, eat alone and watch movies alone.

My husband, Dave, on the other hand, has had multiple visitors since our lockdown began — including a family of clowns, a group of pirates and tree trimmers, our grown children, and many veterinary clients.

Only Dave can see and hear these people. His dementia has invited them in.

I do my best to engage Dave, but he rarely makes sense. Then I sit, mystified, when he has a fluid stream of conversation with an invisible visitor.

Dave sets the dining table for multiple people, packs clothes for departing guests and gets ready for new arrivals. He engages most with “Mrs. Clown” and asks if I am on good terms with her. He might have sensed that I felt weirdly jealous when I learned that they are on a first-name basis (hers is Lulu). I am saddest when he sets the table for our grown children, especially now, when they can’t visit.

Pre-corona, our relationship at home was not much different. But because we had a social life with real people outside our home and real visitors inside it, I didn’t feel so alone.

When Dave is napping, I pretend that I truly do live alone. Such freedom! Without guilt, I do what I want, eat what I want, watch what I want and wear what I want (I am sure I can’t compete in that area with Mrs. Clown).

I am OK for now. But I know that when life opens up again, I will welcome my visitors back with frantic, open arms.

— Kathryn McGrew, 72, Oxford, Ohio

Spending afternoons in my backyard with the birds, squirrels and occasional rabbit has brought me so much solace. All of these tall, elegant trees; dappled sunlight. A silver lining has been slowing down enough to enjoy what I have. A different, more crucial kind of accounting. Time in nature is wealth.

— Kamilah Aisha Moon, 46, Decatur, Ga.

Let’s just put that right out there.

Let’s put it all out there: I’m an early 40s, overweight, gay, opera-singing technical writer who went prematurely silver. It isn’t like dozens of sex partners were lining up outside my door. But I had some friends, and we had benefits, and everyone was happy, and no one was eager for anything to change.

As someone who came out in the mid-’90s, I was taught to be terrified of sex, learned that it could kill me as it had so many other L.G.B.T.Q. people. The recent advent of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) meant that sex no longer equaled death, and for a few years, life was great.

Enter the new coronavirus, and once again sex = death. My isolation bubble does not include any of my friends with benefits; we don’t have that level of relationship. We’ve sent some eggplant emojis to say we’re alive, but none of us is risking death to connect in person.

I’m now wondering if I’ll ever have sex again. I stopped taking PrEP last week. I used the money to buy a caftan and a turban. If I’m going to be a recluse, I may as well look the part.

— Shelby Condray, 43, San Diego

It’s impossible to be lonely in New Orleans. Try going on a quiet walk, perching solo at a bar or standing in a grocery line. Someone will talk to you — and not just about the weather.

Or at least that was my New Orleans.

I left in February for a meeting in Switzerland. But then a cluster broke out in Italy. Borders were closed. I left and came home.

Today marks more than two months that I’ve scarcely left my one-bedroom townhome. I took a couple of walks and went grocery shopping once.

At the grocery I kept my eyes down. Staring at the basket, I realized: I didn’t need the coffee. I didn’t need the kale. Who touched these avocados? Those were luxuries of the past.

I started to feel ill, then learned I had Covid-19. Was it the avocados?

Living alone started to take its toll. Who would know if I took a bad turn?

My doctor FaceTimed me every day. She was worried about me being alone.

I really need to shop again, but I’m sure some stranger will ask, “How you doin’, baby?” and I’ll be tempted to tell them. But it’s not the same when you have to shout from six feet away.

— Desiree Ontiveros, 38, New Orleans

When my employer announced office-wide telework, I was privately, quietly giddy.

The pain of my partner’s death is not as sharp as it once was, but what hasn’t changed is my hunger for solitude and an ache for societal approval of it. Please don’t suggest a happy hour. Please don’t invite me to your birthday party. Please don’t ask if I would like to join you for a walk around the lake. Because I don’t feel like it, but also, I don’t want to have to explain why.

I knew it was selfish to feel glad when the stay-at-home orders came in. I knew millions were already affected. But inside my room, in my own little grieving heart, I was relieved. I was at last released from the gatherings that demanded I bring myself when I had no self to bring.

I’m living alone and I love it. I’m eating more Oreos than ever, but I’m also doing healthier things. I ride my bike. I bake lemon coconut cake. I write letters to friends I haven’t seen in years. I play my cello. I reach out to my neighbors, my family and my friends when I want to. And all the while, I rejoice in the permission to keep to myself, to move around in my own heart, to remain in sweet, sweet isolation.

— Erin Agee, 36, Boulder, Colo.

During 5 p.m. quaran-tinis on Zoom, I hear sheepish confessions from friends about how comforting, entertaining and even revelatory talking to oneself can be. But I have been talking to myself my entire life — personally and professionally. I became a ventriloquist as a child, when I created Juanito to house aspects of myself. It was then that talking to myself in public took off. Responses to Juanito range from intrigued and fascinated to downright scared.

While we’re sheltering in place, I have been wanting to write a show about the personal discoveries of practicing ventriloquism with Juanito. The pandemic has cut out the distractions and we can rehearse at any hour. Juanito amused himself and me by showing up at our rehearsal in gloves, a mask and a container of Clorox wipes. He demanded I put on gloves before sticking my hand into his back.

Once again, Juanito’s there. He insisted that we should celebrate my good fortune of being a ventriloquist at a time when, with a required mask, lip control isn’t required.

— Sandra Luckow, 55, New York

Two minutes into my FaceTime call with my 3-year-old niece, Lila, she asked my sister, “Can we watch a different show now?”(I was the show, and I was boring her.)

When Lila and I FaceTime without my sister, she sometimes announces that she’s going to another room. Even though she promises to “come back soon,” I feel a rush of panic, as if I physically live inside the phone. With no legs to follow her, I’m trapped wherever she leaves me. Once, she left me inside a plastic pumpkin. “No!” I shouted, as my field of vision was narrowed by orange walls. “Wait!”

I wonder if Lila is starting to conflate the human version of me with the pixelated one. The last time I saw her in real life was four months ago, i.e. 750 years in toddler time.

I wonder if I, too, am beginning to conflate the human version of me with the pixelated one. How long can people go without in-person human contact before they begin to question the reality of their own existence?

— Amy Dempsey, 40, South Portland, Maine

A pandemic is a conundrum for someone like me, a person who has struggled with bipolar depression for the last 22 years. What keeps the body healthy in a pandemic — social distancing — festers sickness in the soul.

Behavioral therapy for depression goes something like this: “Go outside! Visit family. Hug a friend. Take a group exercise class. Smile at a stranger. And whatever you do, don’t stay alone in your pajamas all day, eating rice pudding in bed and reading articles about an unpredictable, deadly disease.”

The days have been difficult, to say the least. But then I remember that everything, eventually, will pass. That’s something they teach in behavioral therapy, too.

— C.J. Jones, 32, San Francisco

Editing by Jessica Bennett, Daniel Jones, Miya Lee and Anya Strzemien. Photo editing by Eve Lyons.

Top photo, from top left to right: Kamilah Aisha Moon, Ketaki Chowkhani, Maxwell Chien, Michi Cabrera, Melanie Lan, Christopher Russell, Desiree Ontivieros, Joan Bunney, Makea King, Dylan Cohen, Kate Ziegler, Daniel Issroff, Patricia Hamilton, Natalia Abelleyra, Daniel Iammatteo, Jane Seaton

source: nytimes.com