A few weeks ago, a friend and I were leisurely walking the cobblestoned streets of my town, talking of this and that. At a certain point, our discussion turned to love and loss. “After a loss,” I said, “one has to sort of reinvent oneself. Find out who one is.” You looked at me and said “But don’t you feel lonely?” I thought for a moment and answered “yes, sometimes.”
Now, when I am asked if I wouldn’t want to find someone with whom to share my life again, well yes, in a sense. But then I look around me and find that my answer on the whole is no. Is it because I’ve been on my own now for so long? Because I am truly on in years? Occasionally in the past I thought I had found someone whose views complemented mine, with whom to share experiences, on whom I could depend, but in the end, it was always the other way around.
The realization that one is not immune to needing someone else may come suddenly, as one weighs the pros and cons. What does one do when there is no one else around to marvel at a glorious sunset, or listen to the rushing sound of oncoming rain? Sometimes one can’t help thinking how comforting it would be to hear the soft sighing of a breath at night, an arm’s length away.
True, I’d had that once, and now despite it all, I missed it still. But when I look around me there’s no one who could replace what I once had, and I know how fortunate I am to have had it even briefly. Like it or not, we are alone.
There are inescapable reminders that that stage in one’s life has passed. Take that couple holding hands as I overtake them. An elderly couple holding hands. I can’t help but wonder why. Are they afraid one of them will get lost? Is she holding his hand or is it he who holds hers? Are they communicating through touch? Or is it just because? True, what seems to matter most is just that – the fact that two separate beings are now seen as one. As in Rembrandt’s painting of The Jewish Bride. What caught my eye when first I saw it in the Rijksmuseum were not simply the way in which thick slashes and squiggles of paint delineated folds of luminous fabric and sparkling jewels. Van Gogh had written that it was painted with a glowing hand. By which he meant the hand that guided the touch of the brush. To me it will always be a magic painting. For now, over fifty years later, what I remember most is the way in which his hand hovers lightly over her breast and how she lays her hand on his. Two becoming one through touch. That is what I miss the most, the touch of another human being telling me I am not alone.
Erika Bizzarri 
So moving…and true.
Tom Tiberio
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Erika
it is another beautiful piece of writing—you manage to convey the life in the painting Rembrandt couple, and then join hands with the living elderly’ couple…all in the beautiful wistful Twilight through which we all must pass…ultimately yes alone.
♥️
James
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I have been thinking about your post on and off since reading and listening earlier today, Erika. I suppose we humans are peculiar creatures: as sociable as dogs and as individual as cats, different needs predominating at different times. And of course we vary in our individual dispositions. You highlight the potential loneliness of old age, which I guess is a feature of the way we live now in the West. My wife and I are clearly heading in that direction too. We have just spent a week vacationing in a part of the country where children and grandchildren live – and who were too busy in their hectic lives to see us more than a couple of times. Small children mostly don’t know loneliness do they? They are puppies, not kittens. And they are constantly being touched. Heading down the road towards age, it’s good to be able to recollect all those earlier days of intimacy and touch … I’m drifting; I’ll go and read your post again!
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Thank you John
As usual your comments are more soul searching than mine. so thank you.
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Now at 80 years old, I thought some time ago that I would now be totally alone. But, unexpectedly, ten years ago a wonderful new person became part of my life, and now I have that treasured touch every day, every day.
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Beautiful and insightful. Thank you for sharing such profound thoughts.
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❤️
Inviato da iPad
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As always your words evoked and brought to mind the feelings of love and loss , the touch, the scent the sound of a friend or a loved one.
And how strange to observe the diffidence, the hesitation or the absence of “touching” – not even a hand shake, when friends meet, especially the males, in this very macho society. No hugs – unless it’s part of a football bravura .
Attilla.
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Your writing skill is inspirational! You were my Art History teacher as a ‘72-‘73 Gonzagini. Perhaps I can also put ‘pen to paper’ like you. Keep your thoughts coming and thank you.
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This is a brave, poignant, thought-provoking post. Before Covid I was much more of a hugger and tactile person. I understand how much a loving touch can mean, and I miss that freedom to offer it without hesitation.
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Such an insightful and sensitively written post. There is the great comfort that comes from listening in the night to a companion breathing and in contrast when two have drifted inexorably apart an emphasis of the isolation and loneliness a shared bed can bring. Fortunately, I am in a phase of my life where that sound (and even the occasional snore) is reaffirming of the wonderful good fortune of having found one’s soulmate. I find days easy to deal with If either of us is away from home but nights not so much so when I lie awake alone…the nightmare is of waking and finding it was but a dream for life was not always thus. Paul
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