A dear friend I’ve known for 30 years has moved to Santa Fe and now no longer answers his phone. This is the only way I have to connect with him, and now what? His partner says it’s just too much hassle for him to answer, and he prefers the quiet of this new lifestyle.
Another friend is staying more and more up at her house in the woods, and comes into town less and less. Someone I know in New York has quit going out to lunch, and she and I no longer want to get on airplanes. My last four flights were either delayed or canceled, and included a night in an airport motel!
Two friends who have illnesses are bedridden. This could be a really limited life, or a very spiritual and psychic time for them. Their realities strip away all the trappings of life, and they see they are only a heartbeat away from death, with the increased intensity of whatever time they have left.
This narrowing of our lives seems to be happening more as we age. There are different levels of narrow for sure, but I feel like it’s happening, and it’s perplexing. All the articles about healthy aging say that it’s so important to have many social contacts. Loneliness is harmful to our health. We are more likely to get dementia or depression. We can have higher levels of stress hormones that lead to arthritis and diabetes. We also die earlier. Yikes!
I find that I love my time of solitude and relish the turning inward and the deeper expansion it gives me. It quiets my mind and settles my soul at the day’s end. But I also love my friends and the activities still happening in my life. So, it’s interesting to watch where we are in this dance of out-there and in-there states of being.
Solitude is often valued as a time when one may work, think, or rest without disturbance. It may be desired for the sake of privacy. It’s more about the joy of being alone. Loneliness, on the other hand, is the unpleasant result of solitude. It can be intense and painful, and can be experienced even in a crowd of people.
Is this narrowing in our lives a natural and a more simple way to live? Are we getting more clear of what we really want and saying no to more things? Are we finding joy in fewer things now, and spending only quality time with people we love? Are too many interruptions (like answering the phone or flying somewhere) too distracting now? It does seem like we create our own complexities by busyness and rushing around.
Simplifying, defining our priorities and decluttering our lives can give us space, time and freedom. And, perhaps reaching out to others in the form of helping or volunteering or just communicating will keep our hearts healthy. Another balance we must find as time moves along.
But maybe this more limiting of our lives is natural and has to do with knowing that death is coming, and we are in a sense preparing for the final crossing. Surrendering and releasing all the doing, we begin to psychologically integrate with the world, and become one with it.
“A merging with the light, a return to spirit. We are starting to yield to the final surrender … the return to the mystery,” as Thomas Berry so eloquently puts it in Bill Plotkin’s book, Nature and the Human Soul.
Martha McClellan has lived in Durango since 1993 and has been an educator, consultant and writer. Reach her at mmm@bresnan.net.
