Time Spent Alone...

I spent the weekend alone. 

Not much of a feat, right? My flatmates were away and I had the pleasurable time of a flat all to myself... Or so I thought. By the time the fourth day had passed however, I was bored enough to start talking to walls and was genuinely disappointed when I received no reply.

Four days on my own drove me nearly stark raving bonkers. I realised how important company is to me...

I'm fascinated by the effects of loneliness. Being a bit of a literary fiend, I'm somewhat in love with character's suffering from great solitude such as Miss Havisham, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, George Milton and Lennie Small, Piscine "PI" Molitor Patel and Holden Caulfield. I'm curious as to when a brain becomes lonely enough that fantasy outwrestles reality and invention settles in.

I was recently introduced to the splendid weirdness of "Grey Gardens". For those of you unfortunate (and I mean truly unfortunate) enough not to have seen it, it is a 1975 documentary about the lives of Edith Bouvier Beale Snr and Edith Bouvier Beale Jnr, the aunt and first cousin to Jackie Onassis. They lived for decades together in the Hamptons mansion "Grey Gardens" in near perfect squaller. The house was flea-infested, inhabited by innumerable cats and raccoons, lacked running water, and was full of garbage and decay. 

When a camera crew went in to film the documentary of the two women's lives, they discovered the pair lived in a bizarre fantasy world of pretend socialite grandeur. 

Edie Snr would force Edie Jnr to change clothes (what she called her costumes) up to ten times a day in a bizarre act of first ladyhood. The pair had created a world for themselves in which they were the centre of glamour and gossip instead of their world famous relative. The ravages of loneliness are more than apparent on the young Edie's face and the documentary stands (in my opinion) as one of the best examples of how solitude can effect the human brain in a negative way.

I highly recommend watching the documentary as it really is an incredible piece of real life drama. There is much to be learned here I feel.

Never will friends feel as important as just after watching the plight of Big Edie and Little Edie. It seems remarkable how easy it is to lose oneself to the ravages of too much time spent alone... The imagination, it seems, is wonderful but deadly.

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