Traveling Solo

More often than not, when I travel, I travel alone. Many of the places I choose to visit are places with few people to no people. One of my favorite places to spend time alone is in the stark lands surrounding Moab, UT.

It's not that I don't like people. On the contrary, I love people. It's just that in my day to day life there is always something happening, some distraction going on, some event to attend, someone that needs my attention.

I like to travel alone, particularly to remote locations, because those are the times when I finally find silence...silence in my surroundings, silence in my head. I find a silence that lets me delve deep into my own mind and catch a glimpse of who I am, of who I was, of who I want to be. Diving into those deep recesses of my mind, I begin to understand why I do those things I do, or don't do.

Yesterday, I walked around Lucerne on my own time, my own terms. I was alone so I could see what I wanted to see, when I wanted see, for as long as I wanted to see. I sat on a bench for a long time during which my mind generated ideas some of which I captured as fodder for future blogs. The entire time I sat on the bench, I said nothing, just observed... observed the people walking by sharing smiles with their mates, observed the lake before me rippled by the gentle winds, observed the colorful sailboats in the distance against the backdrop of hazy blue mountains.

 One of the ideas I captured demanded to be turned over and over in my head. I was being forced to consider more deeply an opportunity that was posed to me last week. An opportunity that, if I choose to accept it, will result in a one of the most drastic changes my life has ever experienced. I did not come to any conclusions on accepting the opportunity but I was able to consider it from many different angles and from some of those angles catch glimpses to answers I was posing. I didn't always like the answer but truth is truth whether we like it or not.

Also, while sitting on the bench, I realized that despite constant flow people walking along the shore line, and the children laughing and giggling, and the cars rushing around behind, and the people sailing their boats. I was completely alone. Among all these people, there was no one with whom I had a personal interconnection or a connection based on common, ancestral linguistics, there was no one that spoke my language with my accent. In the stark realty of my aloneness, it soon became evident I was in a beautiful country seeing breathtaking sites and I had no one with whom to share in my delight or to share her insights. I was utterly and completely alone.

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While perched on the bench, I couldn't help wishing She was here with me to share in my joy and I in hers, and more importantly I wanted her to show me those sites that my tunnel vision missed because I am  too focused inward and her sweeping awareness alows her to collect vision in abundance. I believe, if she was here, she would have, in that moment, completed me and we would have been as one.