Why Solitude?

I am too alone in the world, and not alone enough to make every minute holy.

Rilke

I well remember the first night I spent alone in the woods. It was not a backpacking trip. Instead I had driven my little Fiat into the eastern foothills of the Olympics, following old logging roads and looking for a quiet place to camp. It was April, and there was still snow on the ground as I gained elevation, so I pulled over onto a side road where an old campsite was located in a clearing. There I pitched my tent and built a fire, for in those days I always cooked over a fire, and it was cold on that night in early spring. I had my dog Hilde with me, and she chased squirrels while I got busy with my evening camp chores. I do not remember what I fixed for dinner that night, but when I had finished eating I sat down next to the fire to take in the warmth.

It thought it would be satisfying to sit down by the fire with my dog, surrounded by western hemlock and Douglas fir trees. But instead I felt mostly terror. The fire felt like a safe place, but the rest of the world seemed ominous as the sunlight faded. The distance to my tent was only about thirty feet, but when I realized I was eventually going to have to cross that space from the campfire to my tent, I felt terrified. Many years later as I reflect on that experience I cannot comprehend why it is I felt completely safe by the fire but not away from it. It seemed like I had two safe places, the fire and my tent, and I had to brave the distance between them to feel secure.

I did eventually make it to the shelter of my tent and, despite my fear, fell asleep readily. At some time during the night Hilde woke me up barking. I unzipped the tent flap and shone my flashlight into the surrounding brush. There stared back at me multiple sets of eyes, glowing in the light of the flashlight. They could not have been from a large animal, such as a cougar or a bear. Still, that uncomfortable fear was there again. Hilde ran out and chased the creatures away, whatever they were. I returned to sleep. I had survived my first encounter with wild animals in the woods.

That was the last time I remember feeling that kind of terror on a solitary camping trip. The following summer I began my long journey of solo backpacking treks, a day or two at a time, then gradually adding more days until over the years I would stay on the trail for as long as two weeks. On those trips I would experience a range of feelings, but fear was almost never one of them, and neither was loneliness. How could I be lonely? I had eyes gazing at me from the underbrush, the river voices murmuring to me at night in camp, a natural world of connections where I felt, just barely, the beginnings of wildness in my own soul. I was never really alone.

Initially I hiked alone only when I was unable to find someone to hike with me, but that was most of the time, since I was a Registered Nurse with weekdays off while my friends were all at work,

There came a time when that changed. I remember the trip. I had trekked into an isolated part of the Pasayten Wilderness in the North Cascades and did not see a single person for four days. I was elated by this solitude, grateful that I had found such a place. I remember what it was like to scramble around the shoreline of Quartz Lake, to build my camp near the summit of Bunker Hill, and to descend to Hidden Lakes, where there were people once again, lots of them.

They were popular fishing lakes, a day’s ride on horseback and well named, for these lakes were completely invisible until I got right up to the shore. I had a favorite campsite on Big Hidden Lake where I stayed year after year. In the evening when the fishermen had returned to their campground and shelter on Middle Hidden Lake, I would sit on the shore and watch the loons swim by. They would come within a few feet of where I sat and would sing to me their beautiful songs. This is why I never was lonely.

These days in retirement I live just a half mile from Curlew Lake, where loons nest each summer. I hear them and am sometimes awakened by their calls when I sleep with the windows open, which is almost every night. The lake is surrounded by homes and a popular Rail Trail where walkers and bikers make their way along the shoreline. One could hardly call this an experience of solitude.

Still, I live here alone, embracing solitude once again, holding onto that feeling which lives forever inside of me, treasuring memories of moments by another lake. I have no fear of walking from my wood stove to the bedroom, though there are plenty of things about aging that are worthy of fear and trepidation. I am grateful for a lifetime of solo hiking, grateful that I stayed with it despite the fear, and made my way to this solitary moment. In solitude I am never really alone.