Lonliness

I am currently a graduate student at PSU. My transition from high school to college was fairly easy and I made friends quickly (like in the first week, and we're still friends now).  So, naturally, I assumed my transition to graduate school would go just as smoothly.  I wasn't concerned that I only knew one person in State College, because I just figured I would make new friends.  Well, it didn't quite turn out that way and  I spent many a night feeling lonely.  Don't worry I know more than one person now and, though I still spend some nights alone, I am rarely lonely.  

Friends from Messiah

More friends from Messiah 

So when reading Scott O'Dell's Island of the Blue Dolphins I was struck by the incredible loneliness that Karana must have felt.  Let me give you a quick summary.  Karana lives on an island with her tribe, the tribe decides to move somewhere else and leaves on a ship.  Karana jumps off the ship because her brother has been left behind.  Her brother is then eaten by wild dogs and Karana survives on the island, all alone, for years.  This book is the story of her survival.  So if all of that had just happened to me, I would be pretty distraught and unbearably lonely.

But Karana does not talk about the loneliness, instead she speaks of contentment.  "By the time winter was over my house was quite comfortable.  I was sheltered from the wind and rain and prowling animals.  I could cook anything I wished to eat.  Everything I wanted was there at hand."  Except for, you know, someone to talk to, maybe a friend...other people. 

But even in the absence of other people-in a world where Karana has to do everything for herself just to survive, she still lets out her girly side. "I also made a pair of sandals from sealskin for walking over the dunes when the sun was hot, or just to be dressed up when I wore my new skirt of yuca twine." I would totally do that.  I think most girls will agree with me, sometimes it's just nice to be dressed up-even if  nobody else will see you.

Being content, getting dressed up even when nobody will see you...that's kids stuff.