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While it’s hard to say anyone is an expert, I think I know something about being alone.

As a child, I would retreat to my room and sit in the same place on my bedroom floor and find silence.

It wasn’t until many years later that I realized I was meditating, and can recall a number of profound experiences that came so naturally, despite never having named them.

No one knew, but me. This was my special space to be present to all my complex feelings, and observe them as they moved through me.

My favorite book in middle school was “Walden” by Henry Thoreau (if not a close second, after Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Self-Reliance”).

I dreamed about what it would be like to be so isolated, to slow the pace of life down to the point where I would notice early morning dew drops on the leaves of a flower, and wonder at the mirage of colors blending together as the sun set below the horizon.

I thought, “This is how life is supposed to be.”

The examples I saw of this type of true, childlike mindful awareness seemed only available by being alone.