Alone

Down to Gehenna or up to the Throne,

He travels the fastest who travels alone.

-R. Kipling

Being Alone

Years ago I spent a Summer house-sitting for a friend. She lived far back from any town, surrounded by National Forest. The long driveway was fronted by a locked gate, ensuring total privacy. I did not work that Summer, I had saved up enough to instead take a retreat from the social world. I spent the long warm days laying in the sun, swimming in the pond and writing. I would only go into town about twice a month to get groceries. An answering machine with the volume down caught all incoming calls, I only checked it about once a week. I had created for myself total isolation, and it was a wonderful luxury.

When living where nobody can see you, there is no reason to dress up. In fact there is little need to dress at all! I found myself wearing what the weather dictated. During the cool mountain evenings I would put on what was needed for warmth. During a hot day I generally wore nothing at all.

Walking around naked a lot was not really part of my plan, nor the motivation for isolating myself. I had no schemes for founding "Murchisons Retreat and Nudist Colony". It just started to seem silly to wear clothing when I was already sweating on a hot afternoon. After all the only creatures I saw were the deer and elk who wandered the woods, who didn't appear to particularly care whether or not I was clothed.

One warm day I was back in the woods near the house plinking cans off a stump with a .22 rifle. I heard a car drive up to the house behind me. I realized I had forgotten to lock the gate last time I went to town. So I got up and walked to the house to see who was intruding into my lazy solitude. When I came out into the clearing by the house, there was a man standing on the back deck peering though the glass doors. "Can I help you?" I asked. The man turned with a start, then suddenly looked even more startled. In fact he acted as though he was seeing some sort of devil! He nervously muttered something about being sorry and "I must be at the wrong house", while he half ran back to his car. I stood there confused at his reaction to me I stood and watched the car speed away, it was a luxury car with Texas plates. Then I realized what he had seen, and could not then choose between laughing to death or simply dying of embarrassment! When the poor fellow had turned to answer me he had seen a naked and unshaved man holding a rifle! Months of letting just the temperature decide what I wear had made me forget that such behavior is not quite normal.

When I could think straight again I wondered what story he would tell? Would go back to Texas talking of "armed sex fiends" running through the woods of Colorado? If he had felt threatened and went to the police what could I say? "Well sir its taken years of careful in-breeding to get this body and I wanted to show it off", I would say. Or how about "I was hunting some of them thar' varmints and skin is the best camouflage"? To bad I'm not a lot taller and hairier, I could have spawned stories of horrible gun-toting Yeti's patrolling the mountain wilderness! I still remember the fellows face, and now that I'm finally over the embarrassment I actually hope to run across the again gentleman someday and see what he thought! Then again, he may never come to Colorado again.

Aside from that one strange contact, the Summer was uneventful. It was a wonderful quiet time to step back and look at life. I love people, and would not choose to spend my whole life alone, but will always continue to try and find solitude when I can. When I look back at the changes I've made so far in my life, they have all been preceded by a period of being alone.

It seems that the root attraction of the wilderness, and many of the things we do in it is the solitude that comes with it. Think of the sports and hobbies you love: Sailing, skiing, hiking, hunting, fishing, climbing, kayaking and many more. In each of these pursuits you are either alone, or in small groups of people you care about. When you flee noise, pollution and the hectic rat race you are really running away from people. Sometimes we seek to be alone with our friends or loved ones, sometimes with just ourselves. To move from the city to a small town is a minor expression of this. Going camping by yourself for a long period is a more extreme example.

Its amazing how much has been written about being alone. Songs, poetry, stories and paintings speak stories of being apart from others. Much is written in longing for solitude, also much written in dispair of loneliness. Some has even been written in guilt, the writers feeling arrogant or selfish in their desire to stand alone. But the reason I write about it here is to urge you to simply find some time alone. What that time will then mean to you is of course up to you.

When was the last time you walked through the woods by yourself? Though the tentacles of population grow here, there is still really no place in this corner of Colorado where you cannot find some solitude within walking distance. Have you ever walked late at night or very early in the morning around the empty streets of town? How about simply turning off the phones and putting away all your obligations for a day? Regardless of whatever conscious or unconscious pressure people may put on you that you "must be social to be human", get away sometimes. Its well worth whatever time you can find for it . . . and you don't have to be naked to enjoy it.

Todd Murchison spends his Summer working with his brain and his Winter working with his skis. When he wrote this he was at least partially clothed.