About two decades from now, lived a Belgian woman in the city of Ghent. People called her Madam Lingier. One can’t find her particulars on the internet. She was not that famous. She was a sad woman with no family, children and lived alone. In her struggle through the loneliness, she once decided to travel the world. Hers is the simple story of an ordinary person. But something about her life surprised me.
We, the ordinary people despise even an inch of loneliness in our life. In our fights with it, we switch relationships, one after another; run towards our comfort zones; choose random and non-purposeful bonds just to kill the lonely silences; pamper the desires that even our heart doesn’t actually crave for; are often tempted to choose the addictions, excuses, fakeness over loneliness. Such a strong and gray emotion loneliness is! It’s so strange that we as human beings are scared of our very own company and on prolong confrontations, we run away as quick as we can. I do not to infer to condemn the beauty of companionship with this. Love and togetherness are of-coarse the most innate essences and purposes of life, plus they provide a lot of self-validation. It’s actually the human nature to seek for the displacement of loneliness in love and togetherness. But this woman, chose an entirely different path. For 22 long years (1963-1985), she traveled across the seven continents; places like Alaska, Turkey, Siberia, India, Egypt, China, Thailand, Iran, Tunisia and many more. Each year she was in a different place imbibing totally an alien experience. On her journey, she met the children, the women, the authorities, the priests, the believers, the skeptics, common mass. She went to the capitals, the cities and the remotest interiors of these countries. She traveled beyond and across boundaries, languages, cultures and many things. She was a beautiful, wise and creative woman who voyaged with an open mind and a free spirit. But, throughout her journey she was still the same, the sad and depressed person. She always lived the weakness and solitude of mind and spirit. She seeked and practiced religion for spiritual assistance. Although, Christian by birth and belief, she tried to understand the oneness and origin of other Abrahamic religions. She went to Jerusalem to know the roots of Judaism, Christianity, Islam. She tried her best to quench her curiosity about life and both positive and negative aspects of the abstract concepts of religion, faith, nationalities, cultural differences associated with it.
Later, in her efforts to make some sense out of her travels she engaged herself in a lot of community services. She also embroidered in large tablecloths the colorful maps and routes of her colorful journey (refer the picture). It was this faded artwork of hers that grabbed my attention and I was instigated to enquire more about her. I got a chance to meet some of the people who saw her when she was alive. Those who knew her personally, remembered her more as a sad woman who always searched and craved for peace and love. Probably, it was her longingness that made her do things which normally seem unattainable to most of us. She was neither very famous at her time, nor now but had a moderately significant wealth which was then later used for good purposes after her demise. Perhaps, after some time those purposes will also fade away like the most of her artifacts and no-one will remember her anymore. Also, there might be many other stories like her which would have once lived and later dissolved in the tide of time. But I wonder, her courage and vibes will ever die? They say that the names and stories may vanish but the energies always remain immortal.
Madam Lingier was the epitomized energy of how for some people seclusion can extend a kind of strength that even closest and dearest of relationships can’t. Many of us relish camaraderie of family and relationships but eventually end up feeling alone. Many of us most consciously and wisely choose love and family over everything in all the stages of our lives but on personal front, still survive on edges. Even with the closest of relationships, we inhale, feel, touch and breath loneliness and yet fake happiness. But Madam Lingier was strong! She was a brave personality who both lived and outlived loneliness with all the acceptance and honesty. She might have been a subdued woman of her times who lived and died in utter solitude, maybe she herself didn't like her life at all. But what she did with that desolation was exemplary! And she did that with such an exquisite grace that even bravest of us can’t.
My profound reverence to that spirit!
-Goldi Tewari
