Alone and Loving It

Thanks to Dean Kuipers for his article “One Is the Loveliest Number” (May 2). I often have to listen to comments from friends and family who find it incredulous that I would choose to go a concert, a restaurant or a drive in the desert on my own.

The more I’m interested in an event (particularly live music), the less likely I am to have someone tag along. Frankly, if I go to hear great music, I want to focus on the music and not on the person I’m with making a sour puss about not being the center of my attention. I consider such lone excursions to be vital for my sanity.

ANDREASA GEORGI

Huntington Beach

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Thank you so much for Dean Kuipers’s essay. It validates what I pleasantly discovered when I moved here from New York City five years ago after 25 years on Wall Street and Park Avenue: This is a land of privacy and personal inquiry, not a place of needless opinions, useless serpentine conversations and immediacy without much intimacy.

I was so glad not to have to know or meet people, or be aware of insistent industries such as Hollywood, and found my haven in Pacific Palisades.

As Dean says, I can dine alone, write alone, garden alone and explore the splendid natural world alone in this incomparable Nation State.

DAVID TAYLOR JOHANNESEN

Pacific Palisades