Connections and Solitude: a Healthy Balance

     

     A couple of entries ago, I mentioned that this next part of the journey was going to be different. It has been very different, but I am not sure that I can articulate why or how exactly. I will try, however. I am just now starting to feel this myself.

I did spend only three days in an RV park in Escalante which was actually perfect because I recharged my electricity, my phone, enjoyed a long hot bath, etc. Mostly though, I felt compelled to meet people in this town. I knew there were more like-minded people here, and I wanted to connect. By the second day here, I had met a primitive- pottery artist and her husband, a sculpted furniture maker, a hiking guide, a painter, a natural grocery store owner, 4 boys and a councilor from a nearby at-risk teens program, and I managed to get a piano playing gig at an arts event in September back here in Escalante. It was all kind of crazy. I even went to a drive in movie and watched a Clint Eastwood movie from the seat of a 1961 Rambler.

Through some connections, however, I moved my camper to a spot about 15 miles away

up on the rim of the monument. I have had the whole place to myself for the most part and have felt

completely safe in the peace and quiet. The views have been outstanding. Wednesday was a rainy day most the day, and it was absolutely incredible to read, meditate, and just be in my camper during the rain. The evening sky turned out to be the highlight of the day, however. The clouds, the color changes, a rainbow coming vertically down toward the desert, and eventually a full moon which started coming up when it was still daylight and shown like a lighthouse beacon once the sky darkened. The silence was brilliant... with occasional brushes of wind through the canyon. I had decided the day before not to move my camper until I was ready to backtrack my way to Arizona and then to New Mexico. Continuing east was going to be too hard on my truck with the ups and downs of highway 12. That's OK. I found my place, and I was OK to stay.

New Campsite

 Full Moon, Incredible

Yesterday, I went on my first guided hike with a wonderful owner and guide of Utah Canyon Outdoors store, Catie, and a delightfully funny woman from Ohio, Amy. I can honestly say that it was the best hike I have ever been on. It was totally off-trail, and Catie knew so much about the geological history and flora and fauna of the area. It was not textbook though; more just discoveries and conversations about what we were seeing mixed in with talks about politics concerning the monument, life stories, and a lot of laughter. The three of us got on marvelously, and Amy and I were both challenged in a way that perfectly suited us. Catie made us feel that we were in completely capable hands, yet we had to push our fear factor just enough to make it a lot more fun than just following a trail. I am inserting many more photographs than usual because the beauty I have been surrounded by has been unsurpassed I am in love with this place. ( I'll post the photos of my hike at the end.)

      So....going back to my opening statement about how it has become different...

I have learned to meet people easily, and I have genuinely been interested in getting to know them and vice-versa. Trusting people is getting easier and easier. With that said, however, I have been getting to know myself and realize that I need solitude...a lot of it, and I need nature. These two things feed me unlike food ever could. It is part of who I am, When one lives in a city all their life, it is hard to take the time to realize how important silence and natural beauty are to one's psyche. This idea of silence and nature get us to our core as opposed to circling around the periphery. I have realized, today in fact, that when I am tense or not feeling myself, that is the time to go back to my camper, be with myself and my spiritual core, feel nature as opposed to look at it, and just get grounded. Knowing that this is what I need at a very deep level, yet getting better at feeling comfortable with meeting strangers and genuinely enjoying getting to know them, is a wonderful balance of my spirit.

Does this mean that everyone needs to live out in the middle of the wilderness like I have been these last six weeks? Heavens no. But, I do think there is something to be said for a good deal of quiet contemplation; time just to allow one's psyche to reconfigure and one's heart to rest. A friend of mine said that reconfiguring “is an inside job”. She is absolutely right, and I also think that it is a balance of connections with caring human beings and opportunities to be in solitude that can make this "inside job" work. City parks, gardens, houseplants, pets, patios, and yes grand monuments are so important to remind us that the planet's beauty and quiet can take care of us in extraordinary ways if we take care of it.