Bold for the Autumn: Day 12

Last summer when I went to Aroostook County, Maine for the first time I was surprised by vastness of agriculture—specifically potatoes in the county. When I drove through the cornfields in Virginia I thought, “this is the biggest agriculture I’ve seen.”

Nothing could have prepared me for the flat, seemingly endless landscape of Kansas.

Apart from the occasional exit with a gas station or grain elevator the most profound image I saw in Kansas was a sign that read “Abortion Kills,” in front of an industrial size field of corn with oil riggs bobbing in and out of the ground. I’ll just let you make what you want of that one.

As a sustainable agriculture, enthusiast, writer, student etc. I felt it was important to see “Big Ag” first hand and try to get a grasp of a food production system removed from the backyard gardens and small organic farms in Maine.

My greatest observation: damn, it is big.

As I spent two days driving I-70 West I struggled to calculate just how far the uniform rows and crackled soils reached into the horizon. I couldn’t figure out how far cattle herds wandered home. In short the size of it all was incomprehensible.

I’ve been practicing my own smallness.

Feeling small is important.

I’m learning how to move through a space and be reminded of how much more there is outside myself, how differently people live and how lucky I am to be a tiny part of this maze. The feeling of smallness is one I welcome.

I often get it on top of mountains. I certainly did at the top of Mount Bierstadt, my first 14,000 footer I hiked on Tuesday.

Feeling small is integral to my sanity. I breathe in and exhale. I feel free of responsibilities and I feel fully alive.

I’ve been on my road trip for (almost) two weeks now and I’ve met a fair bunch of people.

Among all the people I met and most of the folks I stayed with, I had variations on the following conversation:

Person: “Oh wow you drove this far?”

Me: “Yep, I’m driving across country,”

(pause)

Person: “Wait so you’re by yourself?”

Me: “Yep!”

(longer pause)

Person: “I mean do you like that? Don’t you get lonely?”

I quickly realized that solo female adventures are rare and I’m the exception. But I think most peoples’ questions come from a place of loneliness. They wonder why I would want to go on a long journey by myself.

I think the answer has two parts:

1. Being alone doesn’t mean you’re lonely

2. When you’re comfortable with yourself long stints of alone time aren’t stifling but liberating.

(Insert extrovert/introvert psychoanalysis here).

Despite what Buzzfeed says about the “36 ways to tell I’m an introvert” I think most people should work towards knowing themselves well enough that they can be alone for a few days.

So attribute it to me being an introvert, but I truly believe that if you don’t like being with yourself then why would anyone else?

Between listening to Serial and Dear Sugar podcasts, I had detailed and in-depth conversations with myself. I asked myself hard questions about why I make choices I do and how I deal with pain and adversity. I cried, I made room for feelings I’ve been suppressing, I laughed at my own stubbornness and felt truly happy about some of the relationships I’ve cultivated.

Being alone can be transformative, but it also has shortcomings.

Am I lonely? No

Do I miss people? Yes

I’ve seen some pretty incredible things since I wrote last. The times I feel alone are when I wish to share what I see with others and can’t. I stayed with some incredible people who have welcomed me into their homes. But my time spent with others is fleeting and never lasts more than a few days. When I meet strangers it’s exciting to learn about someone new, but those moments are brief as well. Sometimes sharing verbally over the phone is enough, sometimes it’s not. I feel like I have so much love and excitement to give to others and myself and these are the times my aloneness verges on loneliness.

Driving from Colorado to Arizona was the first time my whole trip I felt truly alone. It wasn’t like Kansas, food was growing there and exits had gas.

If I could multiply the vastness of Kansas by three I think I’d come close to the landscape between Utah and Arizona. From a distance I watched large rock structures erect themselves on the horizon—appearing too far away for the drive I was on. I watched them get closer and closer yet was still surprised by their enormity when I finally reached them miles and hours later.

The way the scenery changed from canyons to plateaus and various other glacial structures was captivating, complex and made me in passing moments want to be a geologist. I thought about the native people who were first on this land and I wonder how the enormity, but ultimate freedom, felt to them.

Was it paralyzing or liberating?

For me I think it was both, but I came at the drive with a totally different acculturation. 

I first felt truly alone on my trek from Colorado to Arizona once it was dark. My own smallness in this situation was overpowering to the point where I scared myself a little.

I drove directly into a lightening storm and up in elevation. I had to sleep in my car. Again.

I think everyday I scare myself at least a little. Excuse me for sounding preachy but these moments are challenges—ones I’m creating for myself— but I’m growing each day, in small ways, because of it.

And that I am thankful for.