One who taught me to be alone

While the weather here has been unbelievably warm, I have to say I sort of anticipate the cold weather of Maine. Maybe. More likely I anticipate the adventure. My life used to be so full of new experiences and people, and now I have the inside of this old house and my children to keep me company. Haven't had many enlightening conversations with my two year old lately.

Been thinking a lot today about a young man I once knew several years ago. I'll call him CC for kicks. He was a source of inspiration and irritation at a point in my life when many doors were opening and some were closing. We had an interesting relationship as coworkers in a mundane world of pizza delivery. I have to admit now that those were some of the best days of my life. I was coming out of a relationship with an African circus performer (yes indeed) who I thought was my future, but that's another story. I was angry as hell and hurt as hell and hating men in general, which is a position I find myself coming back to again and again. CC was an easy target for my angst, but it turned into something more. He was so young and so American, so spiritual and yet so scared of intimate relationships. Or so I thought. He had a dream to wander off into the wilderness and live a life of solitude. He often quoted Thoreau. He was on his way to New Mexico to build his house and live a simple life, and when I heard that, I think I fell in love. I'd been dreaming of New Mexico for years and building an Earthship and living sustainably. This young man was on his way to fulfilling one of my dreams. In the beginning of our time together he once said I could come with him. Hmmm.... that changed rapidly after I scared him to death with my neediness and confusion.

CC and I had a spiritual connection that was phenomenal, but at the time I was much more aware and open to such connections. I could "feel" his presence coming before he ever got there. He could finish my sentences and seemed to be living in a corner of my head. We had great and meaningful conversations. Mostly he told me to stop acting the fool and get real. I was running around, partying with other coworkers, trying to finish my college degree and trying to stay out of love. Ha! I did a lot of things in those days that were questionable at least morally, and I often felt lost, like I couldn't find my way back to my spiritual path if someone took me by the hand and led me. CC did that, or he tried.

Looking back I realized I failed every test he gave me, if that's what they were. I was hurt by his disconnection and longed for a real relationship, so I filled my world up with beautiful young men. It wasn't hard. They were everywhere. People I worked with, people I went to school with. And I felt if CC wasn't willing and able to be in my life, then I would fill the void with others. Perhaps he was a part of that filling as well. Who knows.

He used to accuse me of being afraid to be alone with myself. That was true. I had to be surrounded by people. I was afraid of my own thoughts. So, to prove him wrong, or to grow a bit, I signed up for an archaeology class for the summer--field school in the southeast corner of Colorado, the desert really. I think that was what tipped CC into my world really. I spent a week at a time in a tent, digging during the day and came back to work in the city on weekends, which I grew to hate. I found that my time in the wilderness was a much needed reprieve from my stupidity. Not that I didn't find playmates in field school, because I did, but mostly I had time for introspection. I sat in my tent at night and wrote in my journal and learned to be alone with myself. I even took my paints and easel to my tent but never really managed to create much of anything. But it was good time, my time. And what started off as an excuse to get away from my boys in the city turned into one of the most rewarding experiences I have ever had. I hated coming back to the city. I came to feel like my tent was home and enjoyed the heat and solitude.
But I did come back, and CC and I hooked up for two amazing weekends before he ran away. He left for New Mexico at the end of that summer just as I ended my field school. He left me with questions and yearnings I can't even describe. He ran away to pursue his own Thoreau dreams and left me in a state of sadness that took me several years to overcome.

For many years his words have echoed in my head. When R and I finally moved to Taos and I was driving for a pizza place there, I used to drive past latilla fences and think nostalgically of CC. How might it have been if I had been there with him instead of with R? And when R and I bought the old adobe barn on the old commune, I thought of CC and how he might approve or disapprove of our choices. The sad thing was that I was stuck with this unfinished relationship in my head and R was never ever going to be CC as much as he reminded me of him on occasion. I kept my thoughts to myself and I never went to see CC even though I knew where he was down in the south central part of New Mexico. I was still so afraid of his imminent rejection anyway. He wanted to be alone, so I thought I should leave him alone. And I have. But now and then he shows up in my head and makes me smile. I miss him, his words and his valuable insights. I was blessed to have him in my life for the briefest of moments and I have to thank him for that.

Now, as I research Maine and read the story of the Nearings, who often quote Thoreau, CC keeps creeping back into my thoughts. I suppose we had similar goals in life and a similar outlook. I guess it's natural to wonder about him as I think of going off on my own Thoreau experiment. Of course I will still have R and the babies and a cranky teenager, which will change everything in terms of simplicity, but I have to give it a go. Life has gotten so boring here, so predictable. Once CC said "Too many people know me here. I have to move." I feel like that a lot. Even though I try to get my art out and make a name for myself (well, not lately) and I try to get my writings published here and there. I guess I don't want to be completely invisible, but I would like to have some privacy from my neighbors, from my family. And I would like to walk in the woods on unspoiled land, raise my own vegetables, and chickens for eggs, give my children a safe place to grow up and possibly have the opportunity for my relationship with R to turn into something good and meaningful and dare I say loving again?

I miss the adventure of trying something new. Life's a wastin' so I better get on with it. How will I have anything to write about if I don't go out there and live?