Journey
A story about solitude, strength, and a sheepdog
Unraveling over the past year, caught between dread and joy in a world careening, I decide to choose my own isolation and give the mountains a try.
I wake up in a studio apartment above a white garage. Ambling farmland stretches endlessly in one direction and in the other the late September red-gold mountains are shrouded in mist. Wrapped in a thick blanket I make coffee and light the gas stove for eggs, tick tick tick whoosh. On the first night the coyotes screeched an eerie song and I lay awake, unsettled, wondering why I go off alone like this.
A sweet sheepdog lives at the Airbnb — Journey. She has burrs and tangles in her fur and the sweetest, most soulful brown eyes. Each morning when I wake I see her outside my door, waiting patiently for me to make my coffee and come sit with her.
With Journey I experience the glorious morning. Mist and early fingers of sunlight give the world a soft, feathery look. The sky is blue and the leaves golden, catching the sun in flashes as they twist and turn in the breeze. Journey nudges my hand until I scratch behind her ears.
There’s nothing to do, nowhere to be. No one asking me to complete this or that. I don’t look at my email, not once. Out here I have no expectation of myself other than to just be. Make the coffee, make the bed. Eat the meal. Take a walk.
The running narrative in my mind has always been, you’re going to die one day. Do more, live more. Relentless and anxiety-inducing. Brought up against myself over the next week, loosening the hold of noisy, external chatter while surrounded by nothingness and mountains, I’m reminded that it takes a dark hour or two of the soul to come back to the simplest truths about what life is really about. To remind us to scale back.
To be quiet in a loud world feels like rebellion. Take your pick of platforms to shout from. A barrage of opinions bombards us until joy itself feels like rebellion.
Surrounded by purple mountains and red-gold leaves, with Journey leaning against my leg while I sip black coffee, all of that is gone. Out here I miss just a few things, I realize, and now I’m more sure of what matters.
We get lost out there trying to make something of ourselves. I don’t think we were made for this. For bright screens and bent necks. For scrolling. For long hours and tired eyes. For the kind of loneliness we keep to ourselves even when someone is right next to us.
We’re meant to dig our fingers into the soil and watch something grow. We’re here to be with each other, see each other, love each other, before our time is up. Feel the sun. Taste sea and smoke on our tongues. We’re here to look up and see stars upon stars in an oceanic expanse of sky and feel both small and enormous. To cup our hands around hot mugs and feel the warmth of someone else’s fingers slipping through ours. To gather generations together under one roof, the air heavy with stories spanning a century. To sit quietly as we are and feel no need to do or be anything else.
I leave so early on my final day that Journey isn’t up yet to greet me. Not saying goodbye kind of rips my heart out. Tires crunch on gravel as I ease my rental car down the driveway and throw one last look over my shoulder to see if she’s outside. She’s not.
Do more, live more. Maybe I’ve had it wrong, I think, missing the quiet Airbnb and the mountains and the misty mornings and Journey already.
I’ve never been a religious person but I understand wanting to sit in the quiet of a church. It’s like the magical quiet outside when a heavy snow has fallen. Everything muted, softened. The pain and regret of the thousand tiny deaths we experience along the journey of our lives, softened. Every fear we take on in our lives and hold onto, softened. All the weight, soothed and softened. Staying in the mountains with Journey was like the softening quiet of a church or heavy snowfall, and I’m able to see with clear eyes again.
Eight hours and I’m back here where a train screeches along its tracks and the air smells of cigarettes and lilac. I find a path under a green canopy of trees, purple wildflowers crawling underfoot. Yes — I will die one day. So will my ability to feel this. To see the sky, the way the clouds are lined in silver. Wind in the leaves sounds like beads brushing against each other. This pandemic has changed me. The mountains and a sweet sheepdog changed me. I want less. I want to rest more. All the plans and goals I’ve created aren’t things I feel the need to rush toward.
When I die I won’t miss a title or a busy calendar or any of this worry. I’ll miss moments doing nothing on a glorious morning with Journey.
You’re going to die one day. Do less. Live more.