Day 11: Solitude

a poem a day in the month of may

Friends,

If you’re just joining us, welcome!

If you’ve enjoyed a few poems but feel like you’ve “gotten behind” there’s no such thing. Show up today as you are and engage with the words on this page. Give yourself this moment.

On Thursday night I attended the We Can Do Hard Things tour in Philly, and I want to share what I wrote on Instagram about it.

A few years in the making, Glennon Doyle and I finally met in person, alongside Amanda and Abby. I’m going to tell you the best way I know how: being a famous writer, thinker, leader in this world is a tricky, tenuous thing. We make mistakes and learn from them. We hold boundaries.

We speak the truth and try to use our medicine as best we can. We try to show up.

And I see these women show up in the world the way they know how, learning as they go, being advocates for so many of us along the way.

Really grateful to see them and exchange presence with one another in Philly.
As Glennon shared last night, we make peace with our bodies. And as Abby shared, we need to choose a lane—choose a space and show up fully to it. We can and we will.

Here’s a place to start: proceeds from the tour are going to The Florence Project, who fight for immigration rights. Please support them by donating here.

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Now, our poetry!

Today’s word is solitude, which is exactly what we need to manage quiet in the chaos. What does solitude mean to you?

Photo by Keegan Houser on Unsplash

Photo by Milan Popovic on Unsplash

Irony of all ironies,
I enter this cafe
and sink into my
corner booth,
the only one that
has an outlet
for my laptop’s
dying battery.

It’s noisy here,
it really always is,
people getting
together for a coffee
date or meeting
to discuss something
terribly work-related.

The man next to me
has his phone’s volume
all the way up, and he
can’t turn it down
before the reels start
blasting from his
Instagram account.

I chuckle, a little annoyed,
and settle deeper into
my little corner, where
I know that in a few
moments my solitude
will come.

I put in my earbuds
and turn to my Youtube
account, where I listen
to a guy play trumpet meditations.

I watch a video about
how to live a simple
life and journal about
how I’m trying to
get there, and soon
enough I’ve forgotten
the noise around me,
the people with me
but also somewhere else.

I find myself in a realm
of solitude, the din all
around becoming
its own kind of stillness,
a constant next to my
quiet and care.

I write a poem, and
then two, and remind
myself that sometimes
we go away to find solitude
and sometimes it finds us
where we think we are
least likely to be found. 

(this is the video I watched, if you need some inspiration)