Marcia, I’ve never before out-and-out disagreed with your essays, but here’s a first time, based on my experience as a sample set of one. I’ve done more solo travel than most, first from my work as a young construction worker building offshore oil platforms in distant waters in the mid-1970s. I’ll always be glad I had the experience, not only in working with men from other countries, but in seeing the ports and other destinations closest to my work— Malaysian Borneo, Singapore, Jakarta, Bahrain, and of course seaside towns in England, Scotland, Netherlands, and Norway. I enjoyed most of them mostly for their difference from Texas.
But really, the worst times were when i was essentially ordered to take time off. I’d go to places I really wanted to see— Hong Kong, Penang, Beirut, Paris. But I was alone in that desire, and when I’d get there I did like Ms. Rosenbloom did— go out and see things, then go back to my hotel room and eat room service or get things from a grocery store or market. My shyness, introversion, or both, overcame whatever desire I might have had to meet anyone. When I look back at that time, it makes me sad for missing out of the adventures I may have had. But I was usually surrounded by people when I left my room. Just as in school and college, I was alone amongst the people I was forced to share space and experience with.
The first definition of “solitude” in my dictionary is “the quality or state of being alone or remote from society.” That, I believe, encompasses both the actual quantity or lack thereof of other people, and the “quality of being…remote from society.”
Marcia, I’ve never before out-and-out disagreed with your essays, but here’s a first time, based on my experience as a sample set of one. I’ve done more solo travel than most, first from my work as a young construction worker building offshore oil platforms in distant waters in the mid-1970s. I’ll always be glad I had the experience, not only in working with men from other countries, but in seeing the ports and other destinations closest to my work— Malaysian Borneo, Singapore, Jakarta, Bahrain, and of course seaside towns in England, Scotland, Netherlands, and Norway. I enjoyed most of them mostly for their difference from Texas.
But really, the worst times were when i was essentially ordered to take time off. I’d go to places I really wanted to see— Hong Kong, Penang, Beirut, Paris. But I was alone in that desire, and when I’d get there I did like Ms. Rosenbloom did— go out and see things, then go back to my hotel room and eat room service or get things from a grocery store or market. My shyness, introversion, or both, overcame whatever desire I might have had to meet anyone. When I look back at that time, it makes me sad for missing out of the adventures I may have had. But I was usually surrounded by people when I left my room. Just as in school and college, I was alone amongst the people I was forced to share space and experience with.
The first definition of “solitude” in my dictionary is “the quality or state of being alone or remote from society.” That, I believe, encompasses both the actual quantity or lack thereof of other people, and the “quality of being…remote from society.”
Well, got that off my metaphorical chest.