On Writing Without Solitude
Or: Is it possible to be a real writer when you have small children?
I remember when I was a very young aspiring, dreamy-eyed writer and I read Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet, a beautiful little book given to me by a friend. Rilke says many things in these letters but what stuck with me was how much he talked about solitude. “What is necessary, after all,” he writes, “is only this: solitude, vast inner solitude.”
At the time I was filled with longing and a deep seriousness about writing, it felt to me a grave undertaking and I wondered if I would be able to have a family as a woman who writes. It took me a long time to feel appropriately frustrated by the patriarchy of much older model writing advice written by male writers who, if they had children, abdicated their caregiving duties in favor of their art. Women writers I knew and admired for the most part did not have children. (Toni Morrison stands out here as a shining exception and my admiration for her knows no bounds).
And yet, I agreed with Rilke. Solitude, prolonged hours alone, seemed to be a part of who I was. I liked long hikes alone, drives across two states by myself. I liked the idea of being in my head long enough for something to come out of that.
