[Bread Baking Typewriter] ALONE... Time Connected to Me

by Park Soyeon

Published 10 Jul.2023 07:50(KST)

#It was exam period. Because I hadn’t studied diligently as usual, I was cramming until 1 a.m. the night before the exam. “Let’s just memorize it first,” I was forcefully stuffing the exam material into my head when suddenly, a large light green cricket appeared out of nowhere and started running around the room. Although it was an apartment, it was on the first floor, so it seemed to have come in after seeing the light through the window gap. “Should I wake Dad up? No, he’s sleeping…” In a hurry, I grabbed a large basin and covered the cricket. Inside the basin, the cricket kept jumping, making eerie sounds like “ching~ ching sswik~ sswik.” Listening to that sound, I kept memorizing. My parents were sound asleep in the master bedroom, the cricket inside the basin kept jumping, and I kept memorizing. And I felt lonely. The cricket and I, ah, the world is alone.

#During my time living alone. It was probably after breaking up with my lover. I was busy working during the weekdays, and on Fridays and Saturdays I was out having fun with friends, so I didn’t feel the loneliness until Sunday night before going to work all at once. The landlord asked me not to remove the plastic wrapping, so I lay alone on the “super single” sized bed that made rustling noises whenever I moved. I felt the vastness of the universe. That feeling of being alone in this vast universe was probably felt by me first on this rustling super single bed on Earth, even before Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) in the movie “Gravity (2013).” Feeling like I would become a lost soul in the vast universe if I rolled off this bed, I curled up endlessly at the edge of the bed.

[Bread Baking Typewriter] ALONE... Time Connected to Me

Loneliness. There are probably few or no people who can be free from these three syllables. But it is difficult to share the deep stories about loneliness in one’s heart with others. When we are in a new and unfamiliar place, during the process of finding a partner, or when feeling alienated in human relationships, when we try to find a soul or community similar to ourselves, or when we go through unavoidable life crises such as loss and illness, we feel a cool or desperate loneliness. That feeling of loneliness is even lonelier because no one else can solve it for us.

This book “ALONE” is a personal confession by 22 writers about their experiences of becoming lonely beings. It conveys stories about time spent alone in hospitals while suffering from chronic illness, feelings of loss after miscarriage, the introspection experienced while caring for a mother with dementia, loneliness felt during immigrant life, and reflections on childhood fears of losing a mother who raised herself alone, all delivered through profound perspectives.

Intimate stories about solitude and loneliness are not easily heard. So sometimes we mistakenly think, “Am I the only one?” But we all experience being truly alone at some point in life. We experience it amidst countless human relationships, even among the closest family members. That is why the honest confessions of the writers about loneliness come across like the comfort of a close friend.

Everyone carries wounds caused by loneliness, and through solitary moments, we sometimes feel our inner selves being filled with something again. Through time alone, we can communicate with the deepest part of ourselves and find the self we like, instead of the self others see or the self others want. Instead of habitually seeking connection with others, taking time to look around one’s own heart is precious. As one writer in the book says, a person who has lost the thread with themselves cannot maintain the thread with others. When connected to one’s own center, one can create connections with others.

This book makes us reconsider the “connection with ourselves” that has loosened while trying to connect with others. I want to have time to be quietly alone without the obligation to manage my expression so that others can understand or feel reassured. Also, if someone dear to me looks troubled or lonely, I think it would be good to reach out and stay with them, even if only for a moment, in the prison they are trapped in.