Isolation
12.29.06 (3:13 pm) [edit]
The noise was extreme, as Ed and I entered the restaurant at the height of the lunch hour. All the booths were in use, so we went up to the counter, sat down and waited for the waiter to come and take our order. The place was extremely busy, with the staff behind the counter doing a kind of ballet, trying not to bump into each other and perhaps spill the order that they were all carrying. The cooks were frenetic with movements, quick, as they tried to keep up with the avalanche of orders constantly coming their way; but they seemed able to keep up with it all. Adrenaline was pumping so they were all in hyper mode, laughing, joking; rushing round like chickens with their heads actually on….. everything was running smoothly. I would think that after the rush some of them would simply collapse from exhaustion.
As I was waiting in this maelstrom of loud talking, music blaring and the cash register clanging. I noticed on the other side of the counter a woman, perhaps in her late 40’s, past her prime, with a hint of her past beauty still there, sitting by herself. Normally that does not get my attention, but with her I could see a difference. She seemed surrounded by some kind of invisible bubble…..there was a kind of silence surrounding her. Now all silence is not good, some denotes isolation, being cut off, and I think that is what drew me to her. She seemed oblivious to the hustle around her, pensive, inward, and talking to either herself, or perhaps to some invisible companion that only she could see. For some reason after I saw her, she was the only person in the restaurant that I really paid attention to. After she finished she came up to the register still taking to herself, gave the waitress her credit card, not looking at anyone, with eyes averted from any human contact. After she paid, she just stood there for awhile, and then left.
I know when these experiences happen, there is an awful lot of projection going on, and perhaps some transference when the emotion is powerful. I found myself feeling pity, something I hate, since I think people deserve something more than that, but there you have it, that was what I was feeling. I tend to only have this feeling, or perhaps this emotion, towards strangers, people I don’t know. I know people who have serious mental and emotional problems but don’t usually feel pity for them. I may feel admiration for their inner strength and courage, or perhaps frustration at times because of the cycles I can be caught up with them, but not pity. I reserve that for strangers only. Perhaps it is because I don’t know them and because of that I limit their depth and humanity to that one moment, when they seem vulnerable and alone. Without seeing the other areas of their lives that would give me a more balanced picture of whom they are.
Also my pity could be simply based on what I mentioned above, projection, something being reflected back on me, that I need to look at. Strangers do that for me……..A more or less clean slate, where my soul puts something out there for me to consider. After all of my reactions and judgments of others do come from me, from my inner world, perhaps trying to get me to see myself in others, things that I would not normally want to look at. A mirror, is that all it is? Well yes, perhaps much of what I see in others is just that. They have a hook that I can hang the picture on and if not too frighten or enamored by it, perhaps I can learn something.
Loneliness, isolation, is something that many people struggle with. Isolation or the tendency to isolate is what I work with. I tend to expend a lot of energy around people and then need a lot of time to regroup, which can at times lead me to isolate in ways that are not always helpful for me, or the people that I work and live with. Perhaps she is a mirror that I need to spend some more time with, delving into my own separateness that I at times bring on myself.
Isolation is not solitude, anymore than silence always leads to communion with God. Sometimes silence is just that, a nothing leading nowhere. No inner communion, no creative outlet, just nothing.