Alone

"Always be on the look out for the presence of wonder." E.B. White

Last week, I read to my class stories from Arnold Lobel’s classic Frog and Toad series. Our last story was one of my favorites and is entitled “Alone.” All week long we had been talking about the central message of each story. What did the character(s) learn in the story? They had to ask three questions:

What was the problem?

What does the character do about the problem?

What does the character learn?

After we had discussed these questions, I decided to ask them, “When was a time you wanted to be alone and why did you want to be alone?”

The children’s answers were all heartfelt and some quiet heartbreaking. All of their answers were honest. No one laughed or talked over the person speaking. Everyone listened to each other. These are beautiful rare moments in a classroom of six and seven-year-olds.

After everyone who had wanted to share had told their answer, I then asked another question, “What is a good reason to be alone?” I explained by “good” that, like in the story, the reason for wanting to be alone was a positive one and not to get away from a situation or someone, like an annoying sibling.

Some of these kids come from a family with a lot of siblings. Alone time is rare and hard to come by.

As a child, I used to go off alone for many reasons. One was to escape my tumultuous house where my parents were fighting. I would go up the hill of our backyard and into the woods where I could no longer hear them. The woods became a sanctuary for me. Even when my parents weren’t arguing or yelling at each other, I found solace in the woods. It became a place for me to think, daydream, imagine and just be.

Alone, for me, was not loneliness. Alone was solitude and a place to be myself without worry of being rejected or bullied and made fun of. Alone was often a comfort.

When I was alone, I spent time being nourished by the woods around me. Noticing the wonders, no matter how small. Studying bugs in a rotting log. Watching tadpoles in the stream. Watching a broad-shouldered hawk overhead. Looking at the rabbit as it made its way through a field of wild grass. Sometimes I’d spot a shy fox or see a raccoon.