A Filmmaker's Video For This Poem Will Make You Okay With Being Alone
"You'll find it's fine to be alone, once you're embracing it," is one of the first and most affecting lines of Tanya Davis' poem "How To Be Alone."
Filmmaker Andrea Dorfman recently made a video around poet Tanya Davis reading her poem "How To Be Alone."
The premise is simple - Davis read her poem (and made a little music) for the soundtrack, and Dorfman took shots of Davis spending time "alone" around Halifax, Nova Scotia. We grow to learn what "alone" truly means along the course of the poem and the video.
If you have difficulty with being alone, the poem and the accompanying video will teach you how to really appreciate "aloneness."
The poem first eases into the idea of being alone, which is a scary idea to a lot of people. It mentions three places where being alone is okay and acceptable - the bathroom, a coffee shop and the library.
The poem then moves into a celebration of "alonenes" in more public spaces.
It encourages you to "dance like no one's watching" because, truthfully, no one's probably watching you.
Really, the poem gets at the idea of "loving oneself," of appreciating your own company.
The idea is not to be self conscious about being alone, but rather to learn that your own company is as good as that of another's. And why wouldn't it be?
The poem encourages to appreciate silence and use it to practice your art, or to better yourself.
That's a message we all could take to heart.
By the end of the poem, you really start to get it.
Thank you for you beautiful words, Tanya Davis, and your beautiful filmmaking, Andrea Dorfman.