Social connections do a great service to an individual. Extroverts are happier and healthier than introverts, and often find it easier to integrate into the workforce. Being connected had advantages when we evolved, too, and we as a species, evolved socially. So as a hermit, how do I scratch that itch? I find socializing with people a heavy task, or I wouldn’t be settled here in solitude. But I do still feel that burden to connect.
Now that I am established with my routine, what seems to be happening is rather than pining for connections with human people through loneliness, I am growing connections with the living things around me, and some non-living things such as the weather and the rocks.
It is easier now, without the chatter and clever mental acrobatics of befriending people, to sense the subtle shared gossamers among the denizens in my immediate world. I recognize the trees that are favored by the squirrels, and those by the nuthatches, the way the nuthatches compete with the hairy woodpeckers for prime spots on the suet, the way the downy and hairy woodpeckers commingle- and not, the way the woodpeckers and the doves seem to come in to feed simultaneously, although I don’t see them flocking together, the lone dove that isn’t impressed with its suitors, and the scrappy little tree they like to gather in before coming in to feed. And that squirrel who zips up and down the tree outside my window, except when he notices me watching, and then he stops and stares back a while. There is a web that associates us all. It’s complex and dynamic. I will always be coming to know it, and recognizing its abundant interactions is a fascinating way to honor and participate in nature, and to feel complete and replete, rather than lonely.
Picture: A junco in my beech tree. I love the persistent pale orange papery leaves of the beech against the blue snow and sky!