Filling the well within
Thoughts on a week of cooking in (accidental) solitude
I just spent the last five days almost completely alone, something I’ve never done before, and something I didn’t exactly mean to do.
Last Friday I came upstate to housesit for some very nice friends who have a very nice house on a mountain. The plan was for Hunzi to come up after the weekend, which meant I had three days to live out my Thoreauvian fantasies “off the grid.” I would sit by a crackling fire like Timothée in Call Me By Your Name (but, you know, less dramatíque). I would take long walks in the woods. I would cook elaborate meals for just me, a treat. I would read books while soaking in the cedar hot tub (did I mention *nice house*?). I would plot the entire roadmap of my book. I would even do my taxes!
I did not anticipate how it would feel to literally be off the grid, which is what happened Monday night when some terrifically strong winds/fallen trees caused the power lines around the house to go down, and internet service along with it. There is no cell service on this mountain, which meant if I wanted to text, check email, or scroll Instagram, I had to drive into town and park in the empty lot of the nearest grocery store with cell service. The lack of internet also meant it didn’t make sense for Hunzi to come up until after power had been restored, so he moved his train ticket to Wednesday afternoon, which is how I found myself alone for an additional two days.
The tldr is that I realized in these last few days that being truly alone (like, alone with your thoughts and feelings alone, no phone to distract you alone, no busying yourself with nonstop blocks of task after task alone) is HARD. At least for me, someone who literally never does this even when I think I’m “spending time alone” because I’m probably still incessantly checking my phone or email or running errands or whatever. There were a few tears, and a lot of panicking that the sound of the wind blowing open the screen door was actually the clomping of an axe murderer’s boots. (Dude…I don’t know.)