... and I tried to explain to her last night that we are all
alone, born alone, die alone, and - in spite of True Romance magazines - we
shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company,
we were alone the whole way.
-- Hunter S. Thompson
There is a poem which has haunted
me since I first read it, twenty years ago. In “Diving Into the Wreck” Adrienne
Rich describes an explorer preparing for her mission. The first stanza begins
with a check-list of scuba equipment, then ends with a sudden, almost bitter
turn:
I am having to do this
not like Cousteau with his
not like Cousteau with his
assiduous team
aboard the sun-flooded schooner
aboard the sun-flooded schooner
but here alone.
This contrast runs through the
remainder of the poem: loneliness versus teamwork, darkness and light. This contrast has also run through my
own life: there is no one else. I
have to do this alone ... no help is coming, and none can be expected. But for all that we might wish to be a
part of Cousteau’s “assiduous team,”
there is also a certain rebellious streak of pride in the solitary challenge of
the lone diver. After all, that’s what
poets, explorers, scientists, do – go off alone into the wordless places and
bring back something that might be the truth.
And there is a price to be paid for that.
