✰ HARK! ✰ - Rebrand your solitude. Romanticize your introspection.

✰ a weekly-ish check in where I look closely at my lived experience ✰

⭑Reporting to you from my bed where I eat coffee ice cream…⭑

Greetings Substack, its me, your Boy…

I received a very nice post card from one of my biggest inspirations, Phil Elverum. While I could spend hours talking about this and how much his work has impacted me as an artist, I keep thinking about how I wrote him a letter one day because I was lonely. It felt like the right thing to do with my time to be productive in my solitude.

Today I felt really alone again and he responded.

➶-͙˚ ༘✶

I come to the Newsletter to discuss in some ways the way loneliness has been manifesting in my life lately. My hearts been hurting, I aint gunna lie.

There was a solar eclipse week as many people remember. At almost 100% totality, me and my coworkers danced in the darkness of the moon cover while working our visitor service museum job. I felt their presence around me as a we were experiencing this extreme action together.

There was a cold rush over me when I first witnessed the moon being swallowed by light. I kind of feel like that shadow realm that astrologers associate with eclipses was falling into the holes in my eyes in down to my heart. I felt really alone for the first time since last spring. I cant shake it.

This time last year was the most devastating time of my life. I have detailed this so much in previous newsletters but to be one year out from pure devastation and crushing fear feels so odd. When I think back it feels so out of body, like I was floating through a living nightmare. It is said that this eclipse season is a time for us to reflect back on where we were this time last year. I thought I was so alone during that time and yet, so many were around me. I couldn’t have lived through that with out the love of everyone around me.

“The true state of all things… I want to wade out to dark water hand and hand with you”

To move through my pain, during the summer I did a stint in Co-Dependence Anonymous. It was here I really sought to interrogate the feelings I had about fears of abandonment by others, my inability to tolerate loneliness, and the constant habit of giving myself up completely for others. While also reading “Co-Dependent No More” I realized that children of adult alcoholics tend to have attachment difficulties and are likely to be codependent. I remember attending the meetings listening to my fellow meeting people cry and plead for the pain of loneliness to stop. I cried too.

I wouldn’t say I feel this way now. That was true loneliness. So why do I feel it slowly moving in like the moon over the sun?

My friends are all here. My family is here. So where is this coming from?

I think in times of loneliness the best thing I did was search so deeply inside myself. Eclipsing my own loneliness with intense interest in my own thoughts, feelings, and values literally helped me see the light. It wasn’t totality, but it was impressive. When I was new to lonliness and couldn’t tolerate it, I wrote letters to my friends, romanticized taking myself into the fields as I worked on art, and dreamed. At one point, I married myself with a permanent ring for a month, took myself on vacation, and tried new therapies.

During this time, I really thrived despite the immense turmoil of my life. I won.

“What would be the use in becoming a symbol of walking desolation?”

Ok, so I feel alone a lot lately, how can I look inward and overcome again?

I would love if it was in a positive exploitative way, like Phil Elverum when he wrote his album/book Dawn. I call this pursuit of loneliness, coined by my friend Scott, “Bad Boy Time”. Do you ever spend time alone when you could of been with friends? Thats “Bad Boy Time”. Do you ever go see a movie alone? Thats “Bad Boy Time”. You get the point.

I am hoping that when I feel loneliness rears its ugly head I can aim for a more “Bad Boy Time” approach. Rebrand your solitude. Romanticize your introspection.

➶-͙˚ ༘✶

Ending this post, I want to share this brief story.

For a moment I had a bumper sticker that got so much attention. A little nod to my love of caring and loving myself, I purchased it at this little makers market.

One day while on a phone call with my friend the car behind me got in a head on collision as I turned left. The last thing they saw was below.

⭑In closing a prayer…⭑

I pray that I romanticize looking into my heart so deeply, even if it scares me. For when I am alone I am still with my heart.

Thanks Yall-

Boy Nirvana