Lonely/in solitude trees

A meditation on lone trees and loneliness/solitude

I took this picture at Bharatpur Bird Sanctuary in 2016 but the world turned upside down feeling was so apt for the pandemic years

Dear readers,

Seven months into the pandemic, when we had had been compelled to become accustomed to one of the most disorienting periods our generations had ever witnessed, my husband and I took a road trip out of Bangalore to Hesaraghatta Lake and grasslands. We were emerging from the First Wave once the lockdown had been lifted and restrictions were loosened, seeing the frightening effects of the virus operate in real-time and the vaccines a distant reality. Given that we ourselves only returned to India in mid June after spending three months stranded in the United States, there was a lot to reconcile with and adjust to in this surreal time although surreal really doesn’t even begin to describe that time-period.

As someone whose default mode is being a loner, most of my pursuits deliberately solitary, I recall that even I had had started to struggle to cope with the seemingly unending isolation imposed upon us during that time. My husband being a surgeon still went into work to his hospital but that was fraught with its own fears and apprehensions given that he was exposed to the virus on a daily and regular basis. In those months, the only respite from the uncertainty, fears, and the daily monotony was to take these trips out of the city, driving to spaces which seemed oblivious to a world which had turned upside down in a matter of days and now appeared impossible to make sense of.

I loved being in the outdoors long before I articulated it, just like I was an anxious person much much before I knew what anxiety meant. However, when I lived in States over a decade ago and began to enjoy walking through the streets and discovering local and National Parks, I truly began to appreciate how much being in and around nature nourished, rejuvenated, and indeed, healed me. During these pandemic road trips, the outdoors became even more of a window into the past and a hopeful future, that the world might return to as we once knew it. I recall glimpsing shrines in middle of shimmering green fields, climbing hills to witness cascading waterfalls, or discovering huge fantastical boulders amid undulating landscapes. We were usually alone in such landscapes but here, the aloneness did not matter.

In this particular trip en route to the lake and grasslands, which happen to be a crucial source of biodiversity, I recall stopping at a patch of low-lying land near the lake which too had become a makeshift, ephemeral lake following the monsoon rains. Trees which were accustomed to standing upon and living in earth were now marooned in water, lake-wrecked, separated from their friends growing on higher levels. I especially felt a sense of connection with these trees, both as an introvert who loved my company and space and yet, in this present moment, was getting far too much of both:) Yet, they stoically stood there, resigned to their immobility, surveying the water lapping around them, knowing deep in their roots that it would be gone one day. Did they relish their new found aloneness? Or were they waiting for the day they would be closer to their earth-bound companions again?

I am thinking of those trees because I returned to Hesaraghatta Lake again last week; it was the first time that I was visiting after that trip and so much had happened and changed interim, not in the least, the arrival of my fourteen month old daughter. Those pandemic days had become a hazy, distant reality even though it really was not so much long ago; perhaps, it was easier to see them that day. I encountered more lonely trees marooned in the lake, their bare branches silhouetted against the charcoal grey, drizzly sky. As the raindrops pattered down upon our umbrella, the sounds similar funnily enough to crackling fire, I contemplated how radically altered my life had now become with my baby in our midst. I was interacting with more people than ever and while I welcomed this change, although albeit a little exhausted of it at times, my social battery always demanding to be recharged, I thought to myself about the different kinds of solitudes/lonelinesses that exist within us.

Is it loneliness? Or is it solitude? As a writer, I need time, silence, space to think, to explore and give room for an idea to grow and bloom. If I am stuck on a piece of writing, I take a walk to ‘figure’ it out, as if it is an equation whose solution is eluding me. I need solitude in order to accomplish that as well as gather my thoughts and energies which are inevitably depleted in these days of motherhood. I am getting much more settled into motherhood but each day nevertheless brings its fresh challenges and discoveries and I need to process it all. And it is only in aloneness can I do that. Am I lonely though? I may have touched upon it earlier but it is not as much loneliness as sometimes the inability to explain or articulate what it is that you are exactly feeling. As someone who relies so much on words to convey or relay my innermost thoughts, it can be frustrating to realise that perhaps there never may be enough or right words to convey it all.

But that day, returning to a place whose memories tenderly held me for days and gave a space of refuge in midst of a time when all seemed precarious and tenuous, I once more gazed at the trees rooted to the earth and water and simply felt a sense of kinship. Over the last few years, trees have taught me so much; they have nourished and replenished my emotional wells when they were running dangerously low. Their beauty has ceaselessly inspired me. But today, I simply communed with them, no other thought coming in the way save this

We were not alone; we never will be.

Till next time,

Priyanka

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I am trying a new approach to my newsletters, alternating my usual months-round up journal entries with what I hope will the first of meditations/musings on ideas that are on my mind. If this meditation resonated with you and you would like to read more in this style, would love to hear from you in the comments or by email. Thank you so much for reading and your support, as always.