I am a person, I think, who feels comfortable in my isolation. Even someone like Gage (who is someone with whom admittedly I have a lot in common, a person with whom you might think I would enjoy keeping company) doesn’t alleviate my feelings of loneliness. The effort it required just to be around him and tolerate him made me even more lonely. I am at home only in my own personal loneliness. The thing of it is I don’t necessarily feel connected to Brian Wilson or any of the Beach Boys. But I do, I guess, feel connected to all the other people, alone in a room somewhere, who listen to Pet Sounds on their headphones and who feel the way I feel. I just don’t really want to talk to them or hang out with them. But maybe it is enough to know they exist. We identify ourselves by what moves us. I know that isn’t entirely true. I know that’s only part of it. But here’s what else: Lately I find I wonder about my mother’s loneliness. Is it like mine? Does she feel comfortable there? And if I am comfortable with it, sort of, why do I still call it loneliness? Because—and I think somehow she would understand this—you can have and recognize a sadness in your alienation and in other people’s alienation and still not long to be around anyone. I think that if you wonder about other people’s loneliness, or contemplate it at all, you’ve got a real leg up on being comfortable in your own.