I’ve always loved the air after a hard rain. It feels cleaner, somehow; all of its heaviness has been washed away. Thunderstorms enthrall me, the jagged cracks of lightning ripping through the sky freeze me with awe- but I feel most at peace in the woods after a storm has passed. It reminds me of a childhood spent willing potions from the mud.
As an adult, I seem to be in perpetual pursuit of something to still my pinball machine of a mind. I escape on an adrenaline high or drown myself in concentration, and more frequently I settle for simply dulling the edges with exhaustion. The term is rapidly becoming oversaturated, but lately I’ve been feeling burnt out. Too anxious to rest but too exhausted to tackle everything I want to. Never satisfied by my accomplishments although I know human beings are not measured by their productivity.
But here, the place I lovingly describe as the middle of bum fuck nowhere, I feel at peace with myself in a way I don’t think you can packed into the sardine tin of a city sidewalk. The woods I grew up in feel smaller now, but just as magical. A long legged gait too fast for company, unfettered by a thousand accompanying footsteps; the dripping leaves pattering out a sibilant percussion that finally empties my head of words.
I can find a peace in my own company that feels nearly sacred. Whenever I mention going back to the mountains to babysit the animals while my parents are out of town, everyone has the same reaction- concern, slight shock.
“Aren’t you going to be lonely?”
“Are you going to be okay out there by yourself for that long?”
And the answer is that, quite frankly, I’m happier.
It’s strange to me, in part because I’ve always been comfortable in my own company, but also because solitude is an incredibly human presumption. People go to such lengths to avoid loneliness that they’re left gasping for peace while they dance to the clamour of a million pounding hearts. An epidemic of isolation hidden in a world oversaturated with communication; cities full of people searching for their missing pieces in strangers’ pockets. But we are puzzles unto ourselves- if there’s something missing you will never find it anywhere but in the quiver of your own heart or sliding through the inky corners of your mind. Nothing else will ever fit just right.
This morning, as I stride through the fog, dogs at my heels and horses whickering from the barn in the distance, I feel grateful that in a world where you could be anything I have the space and liberty to be myself. And on this sweet, damp morning at what feels like the beginning of the world, that is enough for me.