This Spinster's Doing Just Fine, Thanks.
Lessons from a book published in the 1930s on living alone.
There’s much to malign about the 1930s, a decade where we decided to turn off the humanity light and bathe in the heart of darkness. Ours was a country ravaged by hunger and poverty, steeped in populist extremism, and haunted by one of the most horrific atrocities in recent history. If we give the words a double-take, we might be talking about the decade otherwise known as 2020, but I’m not here to wax poetic on a history that desperately wants to repeat itself.
But Vogue, ever-relevant, reminded us that we could still wrap ourselves in chic housecoats, swathe our persistent sadness with coiffed screen sirens who always got their man. Yet, some of us were cat-cradlers to the casket. I’m certain if I were alive in the 1930s, I would be the flouncy, pajama-wearing, spectacle-sporting sort. Hurling highball glasses at the television screen screaming, fuck you and the pony you rode in on. I probably would’ve been booted out of my boarding house for my un-ladylike behavior and ended up in the street where a pack of feral cats would make a feast of my face.
But I digress.
While Virginia Woolf gave us a room of our own in 1929, Marjorie Hillis told us to buck up, kiddo in 1936. In her wildly acerbic and oddly fresh tome, Live Alone And Like It: A Guide For the Extra Woman, she addressed the new social wave of women bachelors (known then as “liver-aloners”) in the aftermath of The Great Depression — women who didn’t have the shroud of support from husbands and fathers and had a rage blackout because of it. They enlisted in the great army of Lonely Hearts, weeping about how nobody loved them.
The guide enjoyed a recent renaissance and was applauded by feminists for being forward for its time.
“You can live alone gaily, graciously, ostentatiously, dully, stolidly. Or you can exist in sullen loneliness, feeling sorry for yourself and arousing no feeling in anyone else…Whether you view your one-woman ménage as Doom or Adventure, you need a plan, if you are going to make the best of it,” so begins the Vogue editor’s manual that has made me cackle as I sob my way to my late 40s.
Now, before you climb up on your pulpit and launch The Great Condescension Comment Tour of 2024, my growing old doesn’t bother me. Being single doesn’t bother me because I’m categorically allergic to people. There are times when I would like to collapse into someone’s arms. When I can sleep while someone drives. Maybe it’s a desire to be taken care of since I’ve been my sole caretaker since the womb, but it would be a relief to set down my weight and let someone else bear it for a while. Or at the very least tell me my five-hour bolognese is amazing.
Sometimes, I want to say the words, tell me about your day and mean them.
I’ve never been in love because that would mean being vulnerable in ways I can’t imagine. A lover once poked his finger into my chest and said, I tried so hard to get in there. In response, I picked up the last of the moving boxes in the apartment we’d shared and walked out the door. I was, and still am, impenetrable. I’ve had partners and thought I felt what could be construed as love, but it was more like a desperate desire to belong to someone. Men often complain women are overbearing, but give them a woman who shirks cuddling, doesn’t hover, and prefers to sleep in another room, and watch them come undone. Watch them want the thing they forever say they can do without.
What I love about Hillis’s book is her bracing tone, her lack of self-pity. Majorie is your hard-drinking, bon-mot-dropping best friend who always seems to be arranged beautifully, while you’re splotchy, hungover from Netflix and wearing soft pants. She writes, “Anyone who pities herself for more than a month on end is a weak sister and likely to become a public nuisance besides.”
Here’s some of the advice she bestowed on fellow smart spinsters.
Embrace Defiance
When someone tells me to fuck everyone (not literally, people), I listen. When someone tells me there’s beauty in self-sufficiency, I think of my strength and resilience. I don’t have the luxury of a partner or a family, so I’ve always had to go it alone. There’s no time for tears when the pipes explode — there’s only you with a wrench, a bucket, and a plumber on speed-dial. I don’t want to shout, I don’t need you; I can do it without you, but acknowledging those words, albeit petulant and childish, reminds me of what I’m capable of — I can do the thing because there’s never been an alternative. No one has ever done the thing for me. Hillis tells us we have to first define the life we want and then make it for ourselves.
She writes,
“When you start to live alone, defiance is not a bad quality to have handy. There will be moments when you’ll need it, especially if you’ve been somebody’s petted darling in the past. But you will soon find that independence, more truthfully than virtue, is its own reward. It gives you a grand feeling. Standing on your own feet is extraordinarily exhilarating, and being able to do very well (when it’s necessary) without your friends, relatives, and beaux, not mention your enemies, makes you feel surprisingly benign towards all of them.”
Hobbies. Get One. Preferably Many.
We live in a time where we’re taught to monetize everything. We are nothing if not efficient. And so we spend our days figuring out how we can create 52 income streams from skills we sort of have or things we might be good at. While I’m a fan of multiple sources of income because I don’t like subsisting on ramen and oatmeal, we should have something for ourselves. A way to pass the time that is wholly selfish without a desire to productize or hack it. “Be a Communist, a stamp collector, or a Ladies’ Aid worker if you must, but for heaven’s sake, be something.”
Collecting stamps isn’t enough. You have to be a tower of wants. Feverish. Filled with something you love that you can share with others instead of dragging your still-beating heart up and down the street. Hillis recommends being the hexagon of hobbies, mixing those we can pursue indoors with those that take us out of the house:
“They will not be really efficacious until you’re the kind of enthusiast who will stay home to follow the first type in spite of a grand invitation, or go out and follow the second in spite of wind, sleet, or rain.”
A few years ago, I trekked all over Southern California to explore my adopted home. I scrambled rocks, hiked up icy mountains, reckoned with a coyote that stood a few feet in front of me, and walked through the kind of dark you had to feel your way through. I’ve always lived in massive cities, so the idea of taking a home in a town of 161 people was unimaginable. Until the smallness of population size made me tumble deep into love with the outside grandeur. I hiked and rock-climbed. I read more, cooked more, dreamed more, wrote more, and I learned that sometimes I have to physically move myself to move myself. And while that adventure is over, I’m finding ways to find solitude in a bustling L.A.
Be A Tourist Of Your Own City
Since decent people aren’t traveling because who can afford it — and this guide is for the decent — Hillis encourages us to be a tourist of our own city. Smart dames in 1936 frequented junk shops and off-trodden paths. They went to “one prizefight, one radio recording, and one burlesque.” I am a thrift fiend. Over the past two years, I’ve made seismic shifts in how and where I shop. I only buy secondhand and sustainable clothing. Hardly anything I own is new, and I’ve found that I love thrifting and finding clothes that feel one-of-a-kind.
Since I’m not planning to hit up any burlesque shows or ballgames, I have taken to learning more about the history of California. I’ve bought books and rented movies. I’ve seen virtual plays and magic shows. And when I go out for my daily walk, I make a point to explore a new part of my neighborhood. Although we’re limited what we can do outdoors, thankfully, we’re not tethered to the 1930s technology — much of our world can come to us.
Own Smashing PJs and Clothes That Swish
Okay, listen. I wear soft pants. Medium once sent me a hoodie and it’s the coziest piece of clothing I’ve ever worn, and on most days you can find me wearing that with some variation of a soft pant. However, I have stockpiled cozy old sweaters. I invested in what can only be called an odd pair of shoes that I sometimes wear while getting a bagel. Shoes I wear with my hoodie and soft pants, naturally.
I was delighted to read Hillis is a pajama evangelist. One can never have too many articles of sleeping attire,
“There are … sleeping pajamas, beach pajamas, lounging pajamas, and hostess pajamas. The first two are not designed to wear when receiving anybody, masculine or feminine. The last type is correct for wear when your most conservative beau calls, even though he belongs to the old school and winces when a lady smokes. The third variety comes in all sorts of shadings, from an almost-sleeping type to a practically hostess pajama. Those with a leaning towards the bed are suitable only for feminine guests, while the others would not shock Bishop Manning.”
On the occasions of having the pleasure of seeing a human, I roll up in my finest muumuu and sweater coat. Note to self: investigate this “bed jacket” affair because I’m forever cold and I must have one. The puffier, the better.
However, for Hillis, it’s more about owning a cute frock. Thankfully, otherwise I would’ve glossed over the chapter. She advocates for self-care and creature comforts that pamper and assuage the miseries of the everyday. She invites us to invest in:
“…A glass of sherry and an extra special dinner charmingly served…bath salts in your tub and toilet-water afterward; a new and spicy book when you’re spending an evening in bed; a trim little cotton frock that flatters you for domestic chores.”
While I spend most of my days wrapped in cotton, linen, and cashmere, I do make a point to look like a human for Zoom calls. I wear perfume. I may upgrade my soft pants to a pair of slacks or a long dress with a cardigan. Once a massive literary snob, I now read a range of genres and historical fiction is my bag. Give me a Fiona Davis novel, a carb, and a blanket and I’m cooked to perfection. I’m all about the You’re Wrong About and Maintenance Phase podcasts.
Although everyone sees me from the waist up or I spend most of my days alone, I’m indulging in all the minor pleasures that make the major plague outdoors easier to bear. Chuck the who cares, no one will see me self-talk. Hillis notes this mindset, “with the dull meals and dispirited clothes that follow in its wake, has done more damage than all the floods of springtime.”
Amen, sister.
If you’re reading this deep in side-eye territory, just take care of yourself and call it a day. I, however, will usher in my days in sleep attire style.
Be A Shrewd Motherfucker
Of course, Marj would never utter an expletive — how gauche! But there’s no shame in my game. People who’ve read my work know I have a gift for inserting motherfucker into any situation — whether it be a devastating story of loss, a takedown of PowerPoint, or a brand equity tutorial.
I’ve learned the hard way people are violently repelled to sadness. The fastest way to clear a room is to announce you have clinical depression. People claim to be woke and empathic, but they don’t want the dirty business of your life trampling their hardwood.
Hillis frames this as being your bold self instead of projecting your loneliness. It’s being discerning about who you let into your life, when, and what parts of yourself you want to convey. So, if your relatives are giving you the business about being single, relegate them to quarterly status. I’m cool with this since I have zero family, but I’ve done this with certain friends.
“You can build up quite a coterie if you take enough trouble, mix your friends intelligently, and show a little shrewdness as to when to invite them, and what for. Include as few relatives as possible in one group, on the principle that it’s infinitely better for a Lone Female to offend her relatives by not inviting them enough, then to bore her relatives by inviting them too often. In other words, it’s better to be a snob than a hanger-on.”
Kondo Your Life
Hillis was prescient, friends. While she’s a believer in making a house a home and taking care of yourself, she warns against our tendency to cleave to objects for emotional support:
“The Great Temptation — well, anyway, one of them — to most people living alone is to have too much furniture and too many what-nots. We’ve been in lots of feminine establishments from which you might have taken half the furnishings and given them to the nearest Thrift Shop — and achieved as much as if you’d called in a decorator.”
I’ve always considered an abundance of stuff as a way to fill a void. Anything that comes into my possession has to be useful, beautiful, and easily portable. Do I want to cart that Vitamix around should I move again? Forget it. Do I need that meh book I can no longer return to Amazon? Absolutely not, mon amie. Donate to a lending library or send it to a friend. Everything I own means something to me, and this is possibly why I have so few things.
Someone once asked me what I would take in the event of a fire, and I said, without hesitation, my cat, passport, and laptop. They’re truly all I’ll ever need.
Know The Call Is Not Coming From Inside The House
While most of this piece is deliberately light, here’s the one shard of darkness. Up until this year, I’ve had trouble sleeping because I feared someone would break into my home. It’s an irrational feeling, but one that stems from having been violently attacked in my home years ago. I never had this feeling while I lived in New York, but once I moved to California and felt the openness of the state, the spaciousness of the homes and apartments, and even the width of the sparse streets, I’d wake at night in terror. Often.
When I lived in a town of 161 people, I went to bed at seven and woke at two and switched on all the lights in the house to announce I was home. I bought a taser and a bowie knife. But the only sound I heard was the call of coyotes. And it took a full year for me to learn how to sleep without fear of someone violating the space where I feel safest.
I wake at four, which isn’t much better, but I attribute that to getting older. How my pop would nod off at eight and rise at half three.
Hillis takes a lighter tone, and I’m always one to make humor out of tragedy otherwise I’d choke on the lot. She writes,
“When you wake up in the night convinced that you hear a man moving about in the next room, do not get up and investigate. Still more important, do not telephone the janitor, or a friend’s husband across the street, or your brother in New Jersey. Almost certainly, there is no man in the next room, and, if there were, he would be gone by the time anyone got there.”
If someone is in my house, you know I’m calling 911 from under the bed whilst death-gripping my taser. However, I think she wrote this with tongue firmly planted in cheek to allow women to feel independent when alone. Because while men are often painted as our protectors, they’re almost always our violators. We can feel strong and safe without them.
Party Like It’s 1999
Hillis shares a story about Mrs. de W., a woman who spent her twilight years savoring what was left of it:
“She has her breakfast in bed, late, leisurely, and comfortably. She lets nothing crowd out her regular weekly appointments for a shampoo, a scalp treatment, a wave, a facial, and a manicure. Two mornings a week, she spends in a health salon. … And on nights when she is very tired she has a masseuse come and give her a long, soothing massage. … At a tea recently, she entertained the guests by standing on her head. Mrs. de W. is having an elegant time.”
While I am far from a woman of leisure, spending more time in front of a computer screen and on proposals to pay for the lifestyle to which my diabetic tabby cat has become accustomed, I can appreciate the point in living a balanced life where we get our desserts and delights where we can. It used to be that I scrimped and saved all my money for travel.
Now that I’m strapped in my home and I spend most of my time alone, I try to find the light in the monotony of the everyday. Whether it’s watching re-runs of old shows I loved or spending a few minutes longer in a hot shower than I normally would or allowing myself the extra half hour in bed, I try to give myself gifts for having survived the passing of each day. They need not be baroque, they just need to please me.
I felt this so much - I read it last night and had to read it again this morning. What a find and what a piece of writing. Damn, Felicia!
“Someone once asked me what I would take in the event of a fire, and I said, without hesitation, my cat, passport, and laptop. They’re truly all I’ll ever need.”
Yes. This! In my case, it’s a dog, but still…