I sat on the soft shore.

The waves rushed at the sand. With the dune-like beach and the sea grasses, I could have been sitting somewhere on the Oregon Coast. The difference was with the waves. Though steady and intense, these Lake Superior waves are so much smaller than those Pacific waters.

But for some reason, this Superior horizon feels even further off than the horizon at the Pacific Ocean.

I had come to the beach to be alone and meditate.

This seemed to be my only option…because I’m living in a trailer, parked in a very large campsite and privacy is not easily found.

But here’s the thing. There’s no good way to meditate in public. You can’t sit in the lotus position on a beach, palms up and eyes closed. Not unless you’re wearing a saffron robe or in dire need of being stared at.

It is a very private experience.

Clearly I hadn’t thought this plan through.

So, I did the thing that’s allowed on beaches…I stretched back, in my jeans and T-shirt, settled my head into the sand and seagrass and set my bell-chiming timer for thirty minutes. I felt the tiny grains of sand sift down my back and then settled in, as the colours swam and changed behind my eyelids; magenta, indigo, crimson, gold.

They pulsed and swirled as I kept returning to the idea of just being present…here…here with the birds crying, here with the sun-warming my limbs, here with the contours of the sand under my body and the infinite waters of the Lake Superior sea rushing the shore.

 

 

If I needed a Zen koan to stop my brain-chatter, I had an easy one.  I simply needed to ponder this fact: one-tenth of the world’s fresh water is contained in Lake Superior. This knowledge twists my mind into a psychic-pretzel. It seems impossible to comprehend and the thought immediately flips me back to the present experience of simply being…

 

 

Surely, we have now been driving for all our lives. For these last few days, there is only one thing on our right…Lake Superior. Its waters appear to have no end and the surrounding forests are dark and dense and infinite. Kilometre after mile after kilometre…all we see are trees and Lake Superior.

More trees and Lake Superior.

Did I mention the trees and the ginormous lake??

We are still not even close to Toronto.

I try to imagine how I once did this drive by myself; drove to Toronto in our VW Westfalia, in only one week and with only our lovely Timbit-eating Dalmatian as company. It seems impossible.

I suppose the difference is the length of stays in each place. On that trip, I was clear on only one goal – to get to Toronto. The difference now, is we are trying to camp at least two or three nights, for a chance to restore ourselves from the long hours on the road and to try to explore the area a little, instead of just passing through.

But, a lot of what we were doing in the early days of this trip seems to have somehow been lost with all this driving. It doesn’t feel like we are having enough time to walk or hike or just hang out. My meditation practise and my journal entries have been stalled as each day is consumed with packing up, unpacking and packing up.

This country is so big, there is too much to see and we are constrained by dates and destinations. Given those self-imposed parameters, there really is no other way to do this then the way we’re doing it right now. It’s not like we should/could be doing much different…It is all our choice.

Which brings me back to my meditation on the beach at Pancake Bay Provincial Park.

As soon as we had found our campsite and finished setting up, I told Kevin I was going to the beach…by myself.

I felt a desperate need to reset myself. I was feeling pissy and angry.

No one had done anything wrong.

I couldn’t dream up a better, more competent traveling companion and partner than my husband (of 30 years!). And now that we’ve been convoying with Dave and Vi, it has only upped the lovely communal aspect (and the quality and variety of amazing meals).

 

 

So. It’s not anything to do with people.

It’s all to do with me.

I always knew I liked my own time but this trip has really clarified that fact.

I feel like I haven’t been alone, truly solitary, in, well…for-freaking-ever.

And I am a woman who craves solitude the way a smoker needs a cigarette. I require time to wander, to write, to muse, to sit and stare – and though we are very good at companionable silence in our vehicle, and although I am typing this right now from the front seat of the car, while Kevin respectfully and silently drives, it is simply not the same as being completely alone.

And there’s that whole ‘thing’ to consider too; despite the hours, days, weeks and months that we have spent in each other’s constant company, the flare-ups are pretty minimal. Arguments are affectionately (once they are well-behind us) referred to as ‘rocky periods’.

As in, “Do you think we’re through our rocky period?”

We have had many great moments within the silent kind of travel… sharing long periods of companionable quiet or walking on a shore together, wordlessly appreciative of the grand magnificence of the natural world.

 

 

But still, alone time feels necessary to refill my cup and have something to bring back to the table. Like daily doses of Vitamin D, regular solitude is required nutrition for my soul.

Like any life, whether on the road or at home, our schedules don’t always line up with an idealized picture of how it could/should be.

It is not anybody’s ‘fault’. And it is certainly not up to anyone else to fix it.

However.

It is up to me to have enough self-awareness to recognize what’s happening, identify what I need, and then… just get at it.

Ohm, baby, ohm.