My Lonely Kitchen
A case for solitude and cooking alone.
I’m not sure if it’s surprising that I hate cooking in the company of others. This might sound hyperbolic but if you’ve been witness to me cooking, you’ll know that emotions run high and my patience is low. I am particular. I like my own space. To know my tools. To control my soundtrack. To move without crashing into someone. I am not an elegant cook, instead opting for chaos, sticky surfaces, too many plates, a sink full of washing up. I prefer a lonely kitchen.
I’ve often thought about the difference between solitude and loneliness. I’ve spent most of my life feeling a little lonely. This is a mild affliction, not one to be saddened by, more something I identify with on a deeply human level. I crave being alone perhaps more than I crave being around others, somewhat of a reversal of needs from when I was younger. I hope this might be a result of me becoming a little more grown up. A little less insecure. It might be, but I also think it’s got something to do with never being truly, honestly, unequivocally alone.
I delete Instagram. But then I bump into some friends and I want to see what they’re up to afterwards, and so I reinstall it, ‘just for the bus journey’ I tell myself, and soon I’m swept back up again. An endless scroll bookending a slumber. A rabbit hole of cute dog videos that make me screw up my face in excitement and hopeless, exasperated want. I say no to having dinner. But the next night, I’m having the best time with friends, out in the sun, guzzling orange wine and slices of pizza, and I never want it to end until the hangover hits and I lie still, lifeless in bed, waiting for it to peak so I can do it all again some other evening. My brain is a Google Calendar. My days consist of activities packed into two hour time slots and hot, sweaty bus journeys where I’m running late, staring at my screen and furiously typing apologies that “I’m just five minutes away!!”. And on to the next.
“Cities can be lonely places,” writes Olivia Laing in her book, The Lonely City. “And in admitting this we see that loneliness doesn't necessarily require physical solitude, but rather an absence or paucity of connection, closeness, kinship: an inability, for one reason or another, to find as much intimacy as is desired.”
I have felt this before. Not necessarily in this city, but in other places, at other times, when my skin felt like something to be shed, when it felt like I wasn’t able to connect to someone or something else. But now, I almost feel like the opposite of what Laing is talking about has led to a different kind of loneliness: an overindulgence in connection, closeness, kinship; the overwhelming availability of intimacy even when it is not desired. It speaks more to the kind of loneliness that feels like being isolated from yourself. The weight of needing to be available, accessible, ready to be tapped into 24/7, that can feel like you are being crushed and squeezed. Saying yes to everything and everyone for fear of what saying no might say to that person: that you don’t value them, or the time you spend with them. That you’d prefer to be with someone else. Or that you’d rather sit at home alone, eating dumplings in bed, falling asleep with the tv on at 9pm, drifting off to a sleep interrupted by the anxiety that you’ve not replied to someone, that you’ve double booked, or cancelled when you physically have the time, or so says Google Calendar. That you’re not a good sister, a good friend, a good daughter, a good co-worker, a good person.
It’s times like these that I feel truly disconnected from myself. Someone who craves time and space to be alone. Someone who hasn’t lived with another person since 2017. A selfish person trying desperately to practice selflessness and community. I don’t envy the person I was when I felt that heart wrenching loneliness that Olivia Laing is describing; but the dull ache of feeling lonely in my own body because I’m too scared to cancel on a friend is also just as concerning.
I’m nostalgic for the days when I lived in my little shed at the bottom of a valley, a little isolated and a short walk from my favourite woodlands. Did I appreciate it as much then? Probably not. I wasn’t ready to step into that solitude. It was then that I was lonely, and now that I crave being alone. Distinguishing the two feels like the impossible dance we are learning all of our lives.
It’s one of the hardest things I’ve had to learn: how to be ok with being alone. And perhaps I’m a little too good at it. There’s strength in numbers but I’d say even more in burying into solitude and truly enjoying it. I’m often surprised by how much I need it, only realising it when I’ve taken it away from myself. Over the last few months, I think I’ve been a little scared to spend time alone, fearful that the heartbreak might be too overwhelming, that I’ll start to think about things too much, that I’ll miss the intimacy. Instead, I’ve been numbing myself with constant conversation. I’ve not given myself time to say something new. To miss people. To reset. I know I’m most ‘lonely’ when I haven’t stepped into my kitchen. When the meals I make there are quick and functional; rushed and eaten but not enjoyed.
I feel like an idiot for writing this down. Because although I do feel like this, burnt out from being in the company of people I love (I’m the worst!!!), I also find myself feeling an all-consuming jealousy at not being part of something bigger. I’ve always been obsessed with identifying as a collective; I think that’s why I love hosting, because it gives me an excuse to bring people together. To be in the beating heart of community. I’m jealous of people who have a big group of friends they see all the time. I’m jealous of the best friends who work together and all the possibilities that come with it. I’m jealous of the group holidays. I’m jealous. And tired. And selfish.
These are not feelings that I bring into the kitchen. There, I’m curious and experimental. I’m playful and calm. I’m concentrated and loose. I lose all sense of time. I play music louder so I can hear it over the extractor fan. In the kitchen I am a maker, and I like to make alone. I enjoy being selfish here. Seasoning according to my taste. Not having to share. Indulging in my solitude. You’re more than welcome to come over and eat my food. But my lonely kitchen is just for me.
