Solitude

Shall we skip the 'I'm sorry for neglecting you and I thank you so very much for waiting and caring' bit? It's rather overplayed, isn't it? I fall off the map, you pull me back in, I appreciate, you breathe a sigh of relief at my return...it's a big, beautiful, blogging circle of love and appreciation and I'm eternally grateful for it.

Last week I had the experience of a lifetime. I didn't know it before it happened, which is probably better. I had rented a house up in Maine for a week as a favor to a friend in order to donate to their charity bike ride. When I booked the trip, I planned on having a revolving door of friends coming in and out, filling up my week as they do my life...with laughter, gorgeous conversation and the tightest of hugs. As it turned out, one by one my bounty of soldiers fell, backing out of the trip for various reasons. In the end, the cheese stood alone.

I packed up my necessities--t-shirts, flip flops, books, music, journals past and present, and lots of wine--and late last Saturday night began a 3 hour trip on pitch black country roads to my own personal middle of nowhere. I drove for 45 minutes at a time without seeing a single house or car. As I rounded turns in the quiet night, my headlights would catch the reflective glare of some critter or another crossing the road up ahead. A couple of times I startled a raccoon or two hanging out in the middle of the road. Luckily, no animals were harmed during my adventure, and I eventually headed up the last windy dirt road to Hide-A-Way Hills. When I arrived, it was 1am and raining slightly. The house, much larger and more beautiful than I expected, loomed in front of me in the darkness.

Once I turned off the car and stepped out to gratefully stretch my legs and back (waiting to kill animals is a great static muscle workout), the sound of the night was both deafening in its silence as well as its almost palpable fullness. Insects were calling out, the wind was rustling in the trees, and small animals were scampering deep in the woods. Gone were the sounds of traffic, air conditioners and drunk people yelling on the street I've grown accustomed to hearing in the background of my every day life. I unlocked the door to the house and hauled all of my crap inside. I couldn't even believe how beautiful it was in the house, where the smell of wood pleasantly permeated the air. (pause for visual, although the place looks so different in the daytime)

 

I was a teeny bit freaked out (the place was three floors, 3 bedrooms and lots of windows with no blinds), so I stayed up until about 3 am watching TV and drinking wine. Eventually I shed myself of the fear of a bear smashing through the sliding glass door and went up to tuck myself into the most comfortable of beds. I snuggled in between layers of soft downy comforters and quickly fell into the deepest of sleeps.

The remainder of my week proved to be a beautiful experiment in self-awareness, an assessment of the boundaries of my comfort zone and my overall realization of my place in the world at this particular intersection of my life. I will try to go through some of it on this blog, but for now you'll have to be satisfied with this preview. Please come and join me for more tales from the Great North.

To be continued...