Saint Augustine, FL
How to be alone
6:50am Sunday Morning
I’m sitting on a beach in the oldest town in America: Saint Augustine, Florida. Caught the sunrise today. Saw dolphins and pelicans. Didn’t do much of anything last night. A few people are scattered up and down the beach, walking their dogs or their husbands. I’m alone.
I’m alone, and I am lonely. I’m talking the kind of ‘lonely’ with a stigma attached to it — the kind of ‘lonely’ that gets antidepressant prescriptions.
I thought about the Polish guy we met in Panama a few years ago. He looked like Ivan Drago: tall, spiked blond hair, and perfectly rectangular head with a jaw that could slice a cantaloupe. “I’m writing a book on loneliness”, he told us. It sounded like as good an excuse as any to be traveling by yourself for THREE YEARS.
Three years. I thought about what might have happened to push someone to do that — something bigger and heavier than collecting primary research for your book. (Which I’m not convinced is real. I searched for “books on loneliness by Polish people” and got nothing. Maybe he’s still collecting data: “Day 932: still lonely.”) Maybe his fiancé left him. Maybe a family member died. Maybe he’s a fugitive. Maybe he let his lawn grow out of control back home and his neighbor called the city on him — something that has absolutely not happened to me (read: this happened to me).
He had been traveling in New Zealand for two years where he worked until he was tired of the Kiwis, then he flew to Mexico, bought an old jeep, and drove South. He made it to Panama, where he discovered wine-in-a-carton from four American guys. “Hey dis is pretty goot!” Three years.
At 6:50am, I had been alone for ten days. I saw groups and couples on the beach. But I also saw other alone-people, but they all had things. Things enable you to be on the beach without meeting the critical eye of strangers. There were three things: a dog. A fishing pole. A camera. These all say, “look, I have a reason to be here”. You need something in your hands. Even a cup of coffee — a cup of coffee says, “I just woke up, I’m enjoying this moment on the beach.”
If you have nothing in your hands, then why are you on the beach? Are you jogging? No. Power walking? I hope not. You slowly realize that you have no justification for your existence and begin to panic. Everyone has figured you out. You have to find a solution, and quick. Suddenly, you start doing yoga so that you can justify your aloneness. You realize that you’ve never done yoga, so you just start moving your body around into karate moves. The karate moves inspire you to start making high-pitched shrieks like Bruce Lee. Your plan to justify your existence while blending into the background has backfired horribly. People take an interest in your weirdness and gather around. With all these people around, you feel like you’re in a movie so you decide to do the thing that alone people do on the beach in movies: you confront God with your eyes and hands to sky, and you yell, “WHY???!!!”, then you slouch to your knees and start crying.
Thankfully, I had a journal in my hands that morning. “Hey look at my journal! I’m recording the height of the waves!” That was my thing.
I started a conversation with a photographer who wandered next to me, obviously taking pictures of dolphins. “See those dolphins?” I asked him. If everyone was as sarcastic as me, he would have said, “The dolphins I’ve been taking pictures of for the last hour? WHERE ARE THEY?” Instead he said, “Yeah, they come out here most mornings!” Translation: I’ve been here longer than you.
“Get any good photos?”
“Yeah, got some nice ones.”
I waited for him to ask me if I took any good notes in my journal, but he didn’t. “Thanks for asking photoman — I’m working on my book about loneliness and it’s correlation with wave-height. I know you know it’s not real.” He didn’t ask me anything, so I just said, “…Yep…” you know, like an idiot. And there was that long silence while he slowly walked away, snapping pictures. The paparazzi of the sea.
When I travel alone, I feel like I have to justify everywhere I am and why I’m alone. It’s as if I’m wearing a sandwich board that says “I’m not from around here” on the front, and “please stare at me” on the back. When you walk into a restaurant, you feel like everyone is watching you.
“Look at this guy.”
“Couldn’t find even one friend.”
“Not one.”
“Sad.”
This happened:
“Can I get a seat?”
“Sure, how many?”
“Just me.”
“Oh… yeah, there are plenty of seats if you’re by yourself and you don’t have anyone to sit with.”
I had seen this in movies. “Thank you for confirming my insecurities you jerk.” It feels like people at restaurants are pitying or making fun of me, which is why I always look for places with a bar where I can make fun of myself before the others can. “Hey how’s it goin’, can I get a food menu? I’m alone! Hahah– it’s funny because I–” [breaks down crying]. After a few weeks of traveling I become an expert on small talk and obscure college sports teams.
The people are good, though. There are always some folks posting up at a bar and getting boozed on a weekday night, and they make for entertaining conversation. That’s how I met a cynical 40-year-old man in Texas who talked to me about baseball and Boston and the Aggies. It’s how I met a middle-aged married couple who gave me mediocre life advice in DC. I met two women in Arlington, VA who bought me two beers and tried to guess things about me, like “How much younger than us is he?” One wanted me to “walk” her to her car. Hey listen, lady, I went to public school. I know what that means. (Turns out she just wanted me to walk her to her car.)
I met a guy in Florida who rocked a mustache and talked about how he started Movember. I showed him where I lived in Michigan, using my hand as a guide. He showed me where he lived in Florida using his inverted hand as a guide. Then he said, “hand-hug!” and gave me a “hand-hug”, which was actually more uncomfortable than I thought it would be.
These are the joys of traveling alone. When stuff weirds you out, when you think of the perfect joke, when you meet bizarre people, when you see something truly awesome, you have no one to share it with. I can’t tell you how many times I was on the road, thinking: don’t forget this, don’t forget this, don’t forget this. Because if I forget, it’s lost forever. There isn’t someone who I can share one of those “remember when” conversations with. When the airline loses my luggage and I have to buy a suit on the way to a college fair and I dress in the school gym and the pants end up being too tight and I strategically place an iPad in front of my crotch — I have to make fun of myself to perfect strangers.
I had been to Saint Augustine with my brother and parents a year prior to spending a weekend there by myself. I thought, this is a cool town with a lot to do — the thing is, you have to be okay physically going to those cool places that you see. It’s easy to come up with excuses to stay in and watch movies, but nothing happens when you stay in. It’s not like college where people knock on your door and say things like, “Let’s go!” It’s up to you. I feel like a coward if I go nowhere and do nothing. In Texas I imagined myself telling friends that I had been to Austin, or Houston, or San Antonio, but I didn’t really go. I imagined having to say, I didn’t experience the city, because I stayed in the hotel room and watched television and my life pass by. The Dylan Thomas poem echoes in my head:
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
In the film Mr. Nobody, the main character, the last mortal man, is dying. When asked about death, he says, “I’m not afraid of dying. I’m afraid I haven’t been alive enough”. It’s a different motivation than YOLO — You only live once is a call to make mistakes; an excuse when you actually make them. I’m afraid I haven’t been alive enough, from the lips of an old dying man, is inspiration to live a full life — it’s a call to experience and explore.
I tell myself that I can’t waste this time, that I didn’t come all the way to wherever I’ve landed just to sit in a hotel room. So I go. And I meet weirdos.
