I often fondly miss the time when I lived alone. Or, look forward to living alone again.
There are two or three pairs of shoes at the entrance, small leather shoes with flat heels and square toes, small white cloth shoes with flat bottoms, and a pair of warm indoor slippers. The handbag was taken off and dropped on the floor next to the shoes. The clothes hanger is placed on one side of the living room. Coats, scarves, and hats are taken off and hung up, and the top is always sparse and bright. Walk into the kitchen, wash your hands, take out a small long wooden tray, white porcelain teapot, and white porcelain teacups, and make a pot of jasmine dragon balls or Keemun black tea. Bringing it to the living room, there is a set of sofa chairs quietly placed in the center of the living room. The back of the chair can be adjusted in angle, and it is equipped with a footstool. Outside the half-opened white hemp floor-to-ceiling curtains is a green canopy. Faintly heard the bells of people passing by on bicycles and tricycles, someone was calling their children home. Drink some tea and the dust starts to fall.
There can only be one bed in a small bedroom, and it must be for two people, even if there is only one person. Be able to tolerate falling asleep wrapped in different postures and angles. Pure white linen quilt cover, bed sheet, pillow case, and only one floor reading lamp beside the bed. A stack of books to read before going to bed, and a glass of water for drinking at night can be placed on top of the stack of books.
The bed frame should be placed in the center of the bedroom, no matter which side you get out of bed from, it is suitable.
The house does not need to be too big, one bedroom and one bedroom are enough. One room is used as a study, and the other is used as a bedroom. It is best to face south, with bright sunshine all day.
On the operating table in the kitchen, there is a small Italian Bilotti coffee pot. When making coffee, the blue flame jumps, and warm things always bring hope and strength; Soup and water for the whole afternoon or night; a small lightweight cast iron pot that can be grasped with one hand is necessary for frying some delicious vegetables; a 24-hour constant temperature Zojirushi thermos is a source of happiness in a room: you can drink hot water at any time , you can make black tea, green tea, you can make a cup of mint cinnamon tea.
Sometimes a close friend invites her to live in her house, no matter how lovely the person is, no matter how lovely the other person’s home is, the thought of leaving her room is inexplicably melancholy. The neat and clean black mahogany desk, the white and wrinkled bedding, the quiet space where you can hear the sound of the wind pass through, the small desk lamp, the floor lamp, all of these, caught my feet like a magnet.
If you want to say the most attractive thing about living alone, the first thing must be "silence". Absolute continuous silence.
It was already dark in the evening, you opened the door in the dim light of the corridor of the apartment, and the silence filled the whole room. The cat may meow a few times and come up to rub against your leg. But he said nothing more. You take off your shoes, put down your bag, and walk lightly on the floor in your socks. Quiet, the desk is quiet, the mattress is quiet. One light is turned on in each room, the floor reading lamp in the bedroom, the overhead light in the living room, the work light on the desk, but only two spherical lamps on the range hood in the kitchen, small, dim, two beams The light shines on the gas cooker. Take down the hanging cup, pour a glass of water, and take a breath: you have come to heaven from earth.
Sort the items in the bag, put the milk bought along the way in the refrigerator, and put the snacks sent by colleagues during the day in the snack cabinet. Take out the books you have read in the past few days and put them on the reading chair.
"The cool breeze is coming, the white dew is falling, and the cicadas are singing." What kind of weather was that day, what kind of conversation happened, I don't remember at all, I just remember waking up alone on a Sunday at the end of summer, with the hot windows still wide open, The cold air that only belongs to autumn and winter enveloped the whole body. Checking the calendar, it turned out to be Bai Lu. In the silence, the changes of the seasons are vaguely but clearly revealed from the body's feelings.
After returning home all night, I hurriedly bowed my head and walked alone, a little scared and a little tired. Suddenly, a slight scent of green lemon hits the nostrils-this is the orange tree blooming! Growing up in an orangery, I should be familiar with the smell of orange blossoms, but at that moment, it seemed like the heartbeat of meeting for the first time. Pass by early in the morning of the second day as usual, stay deliberately, the fragrance of last night is hard to catch. Only in the quiet, dark tranquility can one encounter this extremely faint fragrance.
At the age of 23, I just started learning to live alone. On Friday, I always buy a few large boxes of books for myself, buy them from Dangdang, and move them home in twos and threes. In all my spare time, I spend the whole weekend in bed and read. As for which book to choose, it is entirely based on a whim, or based on the algorithm recommendation of the book-buying website. There is no specific field, and I never make any reading notes. In my memory, I finished reading "The Complete Works of Sanmao" and read about the pain of how she dissipated all her belongings and moved back to Taiwan after Jose's death. I can still vividly remember the tears streaming down my face under the desk lamp. I don't know why I remember Bohumil Hrabal's "Too Loud Solitude", I remember how the poor waiter from the country witnessed the absurdity of the upper-class rich people in the old-fashioned luxury restaurant, and later he made his fortune selling food at the train station . His usual trick is to dilly-dally change the money after collecting the money from the passengers in the car, and he can't come up with the change money until the car starts. Passengers were anxious to ask him to pay back the money, but he pretended to look for change, chasing the train all the way to ask for it, but in the end he could neither give the change nor give the passengers the food they wanted to buy. Relying on this kind of profitable business, he finally escaped from extreme poverty.
When I was a child, I got a copy of "The Tale of Genji" by chance, and read it for hours at a stretch, and when I looked up, I forgot where I was. But as I grew up, I forgot about this hobby of killing time. There is no lack of companionship in life, whether it is family or lover, when two people are together, there are so many adventures to do, so many topics to talk and quarrel with, over time, I have forgotten how to spend when I am alone .
Some people feel that they cannot eat well by themselves. In fact, the charm of eating alone should lie in freedom. When to eat, where to eat, throw away after two bites, mix vegetables, make a rice ball, stew a pot of soup, go to a lively restaurant, do not need to discuss with others, no one stops you, Advise you.
Once I went to eat at a girlfriend's house who lived alone. She cooked a pot of soup on the stove and beckoned me to come closer. My bowl of soup is on the bar by the stove, hers in hand. Standing in the small kitchen, the two finished the soup silently. After a while, she couldn't help laughing: "Isn't it strange to eat like this?" Then she explained: "I usually eat like this." Yes, we live alone, so we can eat whatever we want. Sometimes I just take a pair of chopsticks, stand by the stove, pick up vegetables from the pot, and finish a meal in a while.
One year I spent the New Year alone in a different place. During the New Year’s Eve dinner, I went to Dayu Teppanyaki. I was surrounded by young couples and a trendy family of three. I sat alone among the crowd, feeling at ease. The chef seemed to take extra care of me, making sure there was always fresh food on my plate, asking me "how was it" from time to time. The flickering lights made people very quiet, except for the occasional clash of knives, forks, cups and plates. Sitting with peace of mind, I feel that in the dark night not far away, time keeps walking, rushing to meet a big person called "New Year's Eve".
One of the most wonderful times in a person's life is waking up alone in the morning. There is no one else in the room but you. Occasionally, the old refrigerator may be heard sighing in the dark. The neighbors are all sleeping peacefully. No matter how late people go to sleep, they can't survive the early morning, and just fell asleep. The cleaners have just swept the street and it's the scrubbing that wakes you up. The sky was dark at first, and gradually, behind the black curtain, there seemed to be an unstoppable strong light emitted, and the black curtain became thinner. On the heights of the black screen, yellow, cyan, and white lights radiate. The darkness gradually dissipated underground, until the sun jumped out, and the sky and the earth were bright, as if the darkness before had never existed. At that moment, I always think that it is indeed the darkest moment before dawn.
When living with my parents, I rarely get peace and tolerance in the morning when I get up, it is always accompanied by "you should get up", "wash your face soon", "it's time to eat breakfast" and so on. When I lived alone, I woke up in absolute silence in the morning. I felt the weakness of my legs and the weakness of my body in the half-dream and half-awake state. I gradually regained my consciousness before I had the strength to sit up. That kind of complete relaxation is like a person floating in a blue swimming pool, the sunlight casts down from the glass roof and casts sparkling shadows on the water surface, there is no one around, you are completely surrounded by water.
Compared with the gradually noisy early morning, a person sinking into the darkness with the whole world alone in the middle of the night is a pure and peaceful beauty, although occasionally it is mixed with a panic that seems not so sweet. Sometimes you will wonder why the world has abandoned you, why you are the only one facing the boundless black alone. If there is a family in the opposite building with the windows open on summer nights, under the warm light in the living room, the children are playing back and forth, and you can hear the conversations of people discussing trivial matters, maybe that will be good for you: you will feel that you are living in the world, But rarely retains the whole self.
One of the adverse consequences of living alone is the loss of smooth speech. When you meet a crowd and want to communicate, but you can’t spit out the words in your heart fluently, it seems that the tongue and lips are not used every once in a while, and they gradually lose their ability to express clearly.
But I have come to realize that clumsy lips have benefits that are indescribable in words. When others are depressed, your own presence and company are more effective than words; when others are happy, your silence and smile are more sincere than compliments. In many cases, it is better to express with reservation.
The feeling of silence is like Pu'er tea. The first taste is a bit astringent and earthy, and it seems that you need to close your eyes and endure it. Gradually, a faint sweetness surged up from the depths of the tongue, filling the entire mouth. The comfort and refreshment of the stomach and intestines is an added surprise.
After getting used to silence, tranquility will follow naturally.
On weekend nights, when it got dark, I turned on the lamp and listened to Li Zhi's old song program on the radio. But unknown, looking for a piece of heart in my heart. The clouds are clear, and I will look for you from the beginning. The cat is on the other side of the desk. For this half of the desk, I took off the sweater, gray sweater skirt, and black wool pants that I wore last week, and spread them on the table. There are small scissors, sticky hair tubes, and hair brushes next to them, and the clothes are spread out on the large black mahogany desk. First stick wool, stick gray, prefer black clothes, but once stick wool, it is particularly conspicuous. Cut off the protruding hair balls and hanging thread ends, and the curler makes the material of the clothes clear little by little. Tremella red date soup is stewed in an orange casserole in the kitchen, and the sweet and greasy aroma fills the whole room. The clean floor was almost gleaming.
At that moment, the happiness in my heart almost gushed out. What a perfect time in life, orderly, no stress, soft clothes, sweet smells, whole being, what kind of person does it take for me to give up a moment like this in my life.
Although you live alone, loneliness doesn't come often. If you're an office worker, you'll find yourself desperately longing to be alone after get off work: the people and events at work have gotten you talking too much.
The more sincere a person is, the more he can feel that loneliness is everywhere. People who try to create something in their minds will consciously choose to be alone in order to protect their inner world and focus on the search for meaning and order without being disturbed by others.
Solitude comes in two forms: forced solitude and spontaneous solitude. The former is a kind of imprisonment, and the latter is a retreat of one's own choice. If you see living alone as a choice, it's not loneliness, it's seclusion.
Loneliness can sometimes bring a feeling of hurt. Usually on a Saturday night, loneliness takes on a slightly disturbing, frightening mask. If you have been staying at home since you got off work on Friday, I suggest you make an appointment on Saturday afternoon or evening. It is also possible to go to the cafe alone. For a person who lives alone for a long time, the lips and tongue will become less sensitive, but the ears will be extremely sensitive. Order a cup of coffee, bring a relaxing book, you pretend to read, and listen to the conversations and lives of the people around you. After nine o'clock, people are still carnival on the weekend, and the streets are still bustling, but you are already on your way home. That biting, uncomfortable, frightening thing called "loneliness" is washed away by the warm popularity.
Festivals are a test. Especially those important festivals, such as Dragon Boat Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival, New Year, and Spring Festival, people posted photos of happy family members on social media, and the family sat around for a feast. You seem to smell the aroma of food, and there is a warm living room. Children are walking with their feet stumbling, and people are watching a festive program together with the TV on. Allowing yourself to face all this without any countermeasures is cruel and often devastating. It's a great way to hang out with friends. If you don't want to waste time with a group of specious people, it's also a good idea to book some holiday-related celebrations. There are plays specially arranged for the festival in the theater, and the New Year's fireworks display in the square. Thousands of people celebrate the festival with you. This feeling is rare and grand.
Overall, though, a moderate amount of solitude is beneficial. Once a person discovers the beauty and value of solitude, it is like an antidote, a way of beating those Babel spells that have long been unavoidable in life. The cure for loneliness is not to meet others, but to learn how to be friends with yourself.
When a person lives alone, time is his own, and there is no need to passively cut it into pieces. You can do one thing quietly and continuously, and you can read two full-length novels a day.
I used to play tennis one day every weekend for a year. Before that, save energy for this, push down other arrangements, and prepare lunch and jerseys. At the end of the evening, come home exhausted but satisfied.
I have a friend who has lived alone for more than ten years and is a research and development engineer who works independently. Cell phones are often placed silently on the side, and it is not uncommon to work for hours on end to solve a difficult problem. "I often find out that it's almost dark after I finish my work." When he said this, there was satisfaction and exhaustion in his eyes. However, if you live with your family, you probably need a considerable degree of understanding and adaptation to meet his schedule. At least, a competent wife would not let him work without lunch.
When living alone, the room becomes very empty. It turned out that what made the room look crowded was not objects or people, but a lot of unnecessary words.
The silence in the room, contrasted with the sound of typing on the keyboard, resounded throughout the room.
Music can loop favorite albums, such as "The Thief of Time".
When living alone, the room can be kept clean without much cleaning. Is it because people who live alone don't walk around the house for no reason? Is it because he is always the first to put things back in place every time he runs out of them?
Go to the movies by yourself. Afternoon sessions and weekend morning sessions. Instead, I don’t watch the midnight show, because it’s not safe to go home too late.
Disadvantages of living alone.
When you need to get up early to catch a flight, you are afraid that the alarm clock will break.
When returning home after going out for many days, I am afraid that some unpredictable changes will occur at home. For example, plants die. Or, cover it with a thick layer of dust.
When I go home, I need to say to myself, I'm back. It is said that it can drive away invisible ghosts who temporarily live in the house.
When people reach middle age, they want to start a family and have children, so the possibility of living alone becomes very small. One of the consequences of marriage is the loss of solitude. People who have an inner need for solitude will eventually learn to hide themselves from the big house with a lot of silence in the process of living with two people, or even more people.
No matter how softly wrapped your house slippers are, there's nothing like stepping on the floor in a pair of warm socks. If a person has tried to walk with his feet free, he has confirmed that there is no shoe more comfortable than the soles of his feet. Like, no matter how comfortable a partner is, there is no more perfect living alone.
I had to surrender this absolute tranquility to my life, with a bit of indescribable sadness.
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