My Dog Is a Great Kisser!

On the difference between loneliness and being alone.

I was coming out of my friend’s place in Brooklyn a couple of weeks ago with my dog Archie when I ran into one of her neighbors, who was chatting with a woman and her young daughter. The neighbor greeted me cheerily and introduced me to the woman. Mary Jane is on a road trip for the summer — she drove here all the way from LA, she said. The woman smiled and said How fun, while sounding like she did not think a cross-country road trip was at all fun. I said yes, we were having a wonderful time. The woman said, We? Are you traveling with someone? I looked down at Archie. He looked back up at me patiently. The woman squinted and asked, You’re referring to your dog as your partner? I laughed and said, Yeah, he’s my guy. The woman said, Well, that sounds interesting, and tightened her grip on her little daughter’s arm ever so slightly.

I was reminded of an acting exercise from theater school about playing subtext. Your line is “Pass the sugar.” What you’re trying to communicate is “You’re ruining my life.” Great actors are brilliant at subtext, and boy, this Brooklyn lady could go toe to toe with Gillian Anderson. She said, Well, that sounds interesting — but her overly bright laugh and masterful eye twitch conveyed, You are a woman who has thrown it all to the wind, you’re single with a dog boyfriend, you are my worst nightmare.

Mr. Archie Moo on Signal Hill in St. John’s, Newfoundland

There’s a version of this that plays out in the comments on my sandwich videos. Some dude will write You’re single, you have no ring, you’re going to die alone with a bunch of cats. He’s always holding a woman from behind in his profile pic. Well, I reply, I like cats, so I’m not worried about it. Make yourself a sandwich, poops. I can smell the fear on these guys. They do not like unmarried women who have lots to say, and little to lose, and it makes them BIG mad when women choose to be alone.

This summer, I’ve rediscovered being alone without feeling lonely. I used to be good at it. My father taught my big sister and me how to be adventurous when we were kids, letting us roam alone through the rivers and woods while he worked. When I was eight, my sister accompanied a team of biologists on a six-month research trip to the Red Sea. She returned with incredible tales — there was a story about a trip across the Sahara desert with a Bedouin snake catcher that we asked her to tell over and over. She was wild and free, and I wanted to be just like her. I left home and moved to Montreal at 16. For the next 12 years, I wasn’t afraid to stare down life on my own, because I didn’t worry about much. I trusted that things would work out; they always did. That changed when my friend Nicole was murdered in 2005. Nothing felt like it was ever going to work out after that.

I didn’t feel good being alone after Nicole died, and I also felt deeply lonely, no matter what I did — partying, drinking, eating handfuls of mushrooms. As grief irradiated my core and my sense of isolation grew, I started making terrible choices. One of them was getting into a relationship that made me feel like I was licking an electric fence. I basically had a three-year panic attack, and was nothing short of insane.

Last Friday, I was driving through upstate New York when my GPS unexpectedly re-routed me. I was crossing a familiar two-lane bridge when I felt a sudden flare of anxiety. Holy shit, I was driving directly into my ex’s tiny hometown. I hadn’t been there since our relationship flamed out in 2016. And there I was, driving down Main Street all these years later when I realized that, every time I drove to see that man, I knew I was driving towards something dangerous. I didn’t want to be alone, so I chose a person who chased me down until I finally had to get a court order against him. It still feels unreal.

I stuffed the aftermath of that horrific relationship into a leaky container, and kicked it into a corner next to all my other shit. It’s only in the last six months that I’ve been able to examine it and admit that I embraced the loneliness of being with someone who hated me because that felt right, somehow — not once, but twice.

I’m in Newfoundland to see my mother; the last time I was here in December, I was sick with that second heartbreak. Today, I am alone, and I’m feeling remarkably calm and un-lonely. I’m staying at my parents’ house, which is full of bones and shells and cool dead things. I’m thinking about my sister, who died three years ago next week, and how her adventurous spirit never wavered, even in the last days her partner Walt and I had with her. We spent her last July 4th at the beach, we went swimming in a lake, we watched hummingbirds zoom around her garden, and we laughed as much as we could — like when she read a sweet card from a friend aloud to us: It says, ‘Wishing you a peaceful transition,’ Caroline said. Walt asked, Transition to what? She looked back at him and said with a smile, Transition to dead. Fuck, we all howled.

I’m not lonely because I’m surrounded by those good memories, and spending time with people I love all across the country (check out On the High Road, my podcast with

Michelle Albanes-Davis

, for missives from every stop). Friends are sending me videos and texts while I travel; some of them even printed out a pic of me to put on a popsicle stick so I was at their picnic! I’m not lonely, because I’m making new connections with amazing people. I’m not lonely because I love this adventure that I’m lucky to be on. Plus, Archie is the best sidekick I could ask for. If that Brooklyn lady had asked, I would have told her: He’s a great kisser.

More soon, with much love.
Mary Jane ❤️