First Leaving (Part Three)

From this motel room, with the sliding glass door cracked open a few inches, you can hear the Pacific Ocean. It sounds like traffic, a steady thrum and whoosh echoing from the west, interspersed with the sound of actual cars accelerating to float down Highway 1 east of here.

In this moment, though, it is late on a costal evening and the automobiles are relatively quiet. Crickets beyond the room rub their rugged wings, emitting various intensities and tones in layers over the landscape: louder, from just beneath our balcony and across a dark golf green, and softer, from cypress trees beyond the grass, seemingly singing from the water’s edge.

~

10 months and 11 days after arriving in California to live with family: a first vacation. No. Vacation feels too light a word, almost a mockery of life here. It’s a kind of solo getaway, with one’s adventurous cat, that nods deeply to emotional survival and mental health. Back home, it is easy to get lost in the layers of family, work, and caregiving, all precariously held together by a sort of trembling altruism.

Here, for three days, it will be as though a child plays House with no one home. Move chair near window to sit and gaze. A plastic cup for water, paper cups for coffee and tea. Offer kitty a sardine treat. Wash camping dish with a wet wipe and set it to dry on a washcloth.

The quiet will be absorbed and – the hope is – stored in the cells for the inevitable return to the other life.

~

Little tricks of the trade, I guess you can call them. Sinuous strategies you begin to employ while sharing a home with others, when you happen to love living alone above and beyond anything else:

In my own home, the kitchen was my living room. It was a place of light, color, and creativity. Slowness and comfort. In my brother and sister-in-law’s home, the kitchen is a high-energy hub with morning-through-night cooking, dishwashing, and medication-giving.

I have learned to sneak into their kitchen very early in the morning, before the household wakes up and begins humming with activity. One cup of coffee or tea brewed and sipped alone is all that is needed to feel transported to another place and time.

It’s not a perfect strategy; only sometimes do I arise before 6:00 to capture a quiet kitchen. But when I do, it is bliss.

~

At the foot of the hotel bed Talay is grooming his slick, black hair. Pale pink tongue slides mindfully across paw, which then brushes emphatically over ear and cheek. The crickets are still singing outside, but it is so quiet you can hear the cat’s slurp-and-comb rhythm during his ritual.

This is just the beginning of a brief but comprehensive return to solitude. It is a gift, medicinal, prescribed by the Self for the Self.

Already, the heart wants to know: is it too soon to plan the next trip?

This is Part Three of Not-Yet-Sure-How-Many posts about the singleton experience.

As the world continues to lose its mind, here’s to doing what we can to lessen the pain while remaining loyal to ourselves.

Keep your chin up, keep pedaling.