Being alone physically is not isolation from the world. It’s about encompassing the whole world and the universe; the silence I find myself in has become a tool to look around me and see everything. Silence and being alone in a room is a way to think about nature and appreciate all the miracles the natural world provides. Just seeing a cloud move across the sky to see it turn into a storm cloud gets my imagination going; it inspires me to create a story or poem. Imagine people living up in the sky, they live in transparent spheres of water, and the storm clouds power the spheres and the cities within them. Everything seen in nature is an opportunity to see things that other people never imagine. When there is silence, I can hear the voices of characters I create, feel their presence, and imagine myself interacting with them; this is called play. Working alone doesn’t seem like work, so my mind is free to wonder what is on the other side of my imagination.
When I’m writing alone, I can be who I wish to be, live somewhere that is mythical and interact with fictitious people. I feel comforted by the fantastical element of nature; ferns, insulated in a forest, surround me; in the early morning, there is fog all around; I start to think, then a story begins to emerge until I can see the landscapes, cities, people, and cultures that start to write themselves in my imagination. These mythical worlds can only develop if I’m not distracted by other people’s thoughts and opinions. Silence has the power to make creation a part of my life. If anything is possible, a whole story emerges as if it were a movie. As I live in solitary silence, a particular space I’m working in becomes my world; no one is permitted to enter that space unless I ask them to.
I remember places I went to physically, the area in photographs, and worlds I imagined. This is where a place that never existed can emerge. Only without distractions from the outside world can I collect memories, imagined places, and things I learned; they have assembled into a collage of knowledge to become a mythical world of my own.
The night is a specific time to write; the dark seems to drape the world from things I don’t wish to see, the world I want to it to emerge, a fantasy world of my own. The noisy thoughts of people of the day slowly fade away. Once night takes over, writing becomes easy, stories emerge, and ideas flow.
During the time of silence and solitude, my thoughts travel everywhere, especially at night, because it feels like another world for me.
Robert J. Matsunaga
