10 December 2009, A cafe in Glasgow:

Walking the streets of this elusive city, I have resigned myself to commercialism and clothing when I spot an adorable cafe. Beneath a white enamel and cut glass chandelier, a larger than necessary slice of Victoria sponge cake sitting prettily on a plate before me, I take out The Vampire Lestat and prepare to drown Glaswegian monotony in powdered sugar and aristocratic blood.

That is until Joanna Newsom so distinctively steals the show

There are those musicians, those genres, and those songs that meekly offer their nondescript sound to the elevators, doctor's office waiting rooms, and quiet cafes of the world. Emptier than silence; quieter than white noise. Joanna Newsom is not one of them. One phrase--the first word--and I know it is her.

Of all the cafes in all of Glasgow, she sang into mine.

It is too much of a coincidence to ignore. Joanna Newsom has indeed been the catalyst of this whole experience. Abandoning my escapist novel, I take up instead my journal, a pencil, and a thought: the thought of solitude.

My freshman year of university, I relied on preexisting relationships to buffer me from the onslaught of self-discovery ready and waiting around corners and in front rows of lecture halls. It was sophomore year, really, that functioned for me as that dive into nothingness, into self, into life. During that time, I first mourned and then grew to cherish my self-imposed solitude. As it always seems to go, as soon as I became comfortable being alone, I no longer had to be. Unexpected and beautifully easy friendships seemed to blossom around me like time-lapse recordings of the first flowers popping through the ground in Spring--fast, natural, precious. My hours of solitary reflection were replaced with hours of mutual reflection.

That's the amazing thing about solitude: it will always be free for coffee. I knew I could come back to it.

And come back to it, I have. This solitude, however, is of a different breed. Where solitude before meant a retreat into my own space with nondescript music and a good book, I am now stepping into the solitude of a crowd. Last night, I boarded a train to a new city, braved the Glaswegian taxi-cab driver accent, and stood third from the barrier at a concert--alone. I rode the wave of hundreds of sweaty bodies, cluttered consciousnesses, and swells of sound. I was so completely a part of the whole, fused with and dictated by the people beside me and the song within, and so completely separate from it. A foreigner on two counts, a lone participant, the defender of my space and my view. Two years ago, maybe even just one, I would never have had the self-confidence to stand such solitude. This time, not only did I stand it, I loved it.

And so today, I find myself in a random cafe in Glasgow, eating Victoria sponge cake as a Joanna Newsom song plays overhead, and I know I have to share this solitude with you.