One Saturday, a few months ago, I felt the pull of the Big Alone. I didn’t have much to do that day, so I booked myself a ticket at the cinema to watch a film called The Nest.
I hadn’t planned to watch The Nest. I watched like, half the trailer or something that morning. It seemed like the kind of film where all the characters’ emotions are pressed together way too tight like dying flowers between book pages, and there is not one single shot in an optimistic lighting. Which made it a good film choice for the Big Alone even though it stars Jude Law, whose characters I feel always epitomises self-loathing sad-boy. In my head Jude Law characters are always like, poor me I’m good looking and cannot help but do wrong over and over again, look at me weep, can you see I’m weeping but not in an ugly way at all. Maybe it’s because of his role in Closer or maybe it’s just his face, although it’s definitely his role in Closer.
The Nest is a film about four very lonely people. Their loneliness looks like what happens when you wrap string around your finger so that constricted blood begins to swell between the gaps. Loneliness, to me, is not like being lost at sea, or floating in space. It’s the feeling of your lungs expanding into your rib cage, or growing too big for the room, like Alice after the Eat Me cake. It’s claustrophobic, heavy and grey like fog. The Big Alone is at the other end of the a-lone-liness spectrum. It’s expansive, luminous and limitless. A departures lounge for possibility.
The cinema is the ideal resting place for the Big Alone. At least it was for me on that day in September — a nice, hopeful, orange-y crisp month. I ate popcorn, no one tried to speak to me and I felt complete.
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I’ve thinking about claustrophobia and greyness and The Nest because the clocks went back and it’s November. It was not sudden or unexpected; and yet suddenly we’re all tired and wading around in darkness. I’m convinced that since October 1st, there has not been a single beam of optimistic lighting. The sunshine, when it does appear, seems artificial, like it’s draining my life force for its own fluorescence. I feel dull and cold and slightly paranoid; needlessly lonely at night. It’s gotten to the point where I’m actually drinking herbal tea. Which I usually just buy for the aspirational branding and store unopened for 4-13 months.
And just about everyone I know is tired. Like as if this doesn’t happen every year, around this time. Maybe every year it feels exactly like this; all of us just clawing along damp pavement reaching out for December 1st. November is notorious for being The Long Month and although it’s cliché to write about how dark and depressing it is, I’ve made soup like 6 times in two weeks. I’m eating bowls of cliché in abundance.
There’s no real antidote besides probably exercise or one of those SAD lamps and of course ~ the slow passing of time ~. Here are a few things I’ve got on the go which have been, I guess, helpful?
Probably not to you, but anyway:
At any time of year, during every year since I watched Season 1 of MTV’s Laguna Beach, I am watching reality tv. Reality tv producers love hot and expensive backdrops and even though I am basically always watching Below Deck, I have found it increasingly revitalising over the past few weeks. Sunshine; the bunny pad; crew relationships; unreasonable guest requests — can you absorb Vitamin D for Drama through a screen? I’ve also just started Tampa Baes; if you’re also a Shiva stan let me know.
Another thing I did the other day was to make a bunch of cupcakes. Like 14 of them? I smashed half a package of Oreos and mixed it in a tub of Betty Crocker’s Velvety Vanilla icing. It felt pretty wholesome and childish and I mostly ate the tops. Not all 14 but never say never. Ultimately: an easy, feel-good thing to do. Do not fuck around with anything artisan — box cakes only for maximum effect.
Oh and I’ve been regularly sitting in complete darkness. Really don’t recommend it, but I keep doing it. I’ll be working and then it’s 4PM and pitch. Need to stop that really.
Not healthy but I’ve developed an anxious attachment style to my AirPods. I’ve never had AirPods and one of the reasons is because they seem like the exact kind of thing I’d lose, which is a lot of things, except these are more expensive. Lately, I’ve noticed an emotional reliance on the AirPods; like I’m actively charging them which I do with no other tech because it is actually possible to soundtrack your way to more uplifting settings. Have spent years doing the opposite, but there we go. Also, I’ve been listening to Liz Lawrence’s new album The Avalanche, in particular the song “Saturated”, which is all kinds of auditory brightness.
Collecting ideas for when I can be bothered. Like, for the future. For this thing, and other things, whatever this is and they are. November is a vampire and I am half-dead.
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