Step Out of Line

Well, it seems 8538 kms. in one month just wasn’t enough driving for me, so last weekend I jumped in my car to locate 1,900 square kms. of sand dunes – in Saskatchewan. Now I know that 99.999999% of you did not even know there were sand dunes in Saskatchewan. Yup.

On my interminable, meandering drive from Calgary, I made a point of stopping at every weathered grain elevator (4),

and take a collection of pictures that any archivist would envy, of sun-bleached buildings collapsing in on themselves, surrendered completely to time and gravity.

Keep reading folks, because it’s bound to get helpful.

Driving through the small towns and villages, I didn’t spot a single person, even though it was a Saturday.

I finally got to the village of Sceptre, home of 15 faded murals, and at the  “Closed for the Season” Great Sand Dunes Museum, there is a tiny piece of paper taped on the window with driving instructions. “Turn right at the wildlife viewing area sign onto the gravel road, follow the curve to the right, turn left at the white sign. The sand dunes are just past the cattle gate.” Easy.

There were intriguing turns. I didn’t know what I would find when, and if, I got there: maybe just a big sand pile in a scrubby bush clearing with a few rabbits hopping around. 

Following the meagre instructions, given I am someone with an instruction challenge disorder, I finally pull into the tiny parking lot, one that could accommodate maybe ten cars if everyone parked logically. 

As the clouds of dust settled, I look up and I stop breathing for a moment. It looked like the abandoned set of Lawrence of Arabia.
 

Off to my left, I spot something high on a hill. Curious, I make my way up the steep slope, the sand deep and silica soft, the kind you might feel between your toes at the most luxurious beaches. The hill I was now walking up, I would later read, is Boot Hill, named for the late John Both, a rancher who cared for the dunes for 57 years. At the top of the hill was a wooden arch with dozens of cowboy boots nailed on haphazardly. Both had initially nailed a pair of his old boots to it, inspiring dozens to follow sui

Looking south and east, there are dramatic waves of sand, and more gold rising in the distance, each dune standing at least 15 to 20 metres high. The area was so vast and empty, it was hard to determine the distance between each dune and even the crests within them.

And I was completely alone.

Not to be afraid when you are all alone is the only true way of being not afraid.                                                                                                                -Olga Jacoby

So here is the question.  How brave can we be in our aloneness without feeling unsafe, uncomfortable, or even afraid?

The freedom of traveling alone, eating alone, living alone, or walking alone, gives us the opportunity to pay a certain kind of attention – to really “look” at things fully.  For me, much of the visceral benefit and potential of listening, of watching, of doing, is not possible when shared.  Our culture stigmatizes aloneness. Being alone is a difficult discipline. It is seldom allowed, condoned, nor given safe practice. Anyone who chooses to be alone is often feigned as hollow as the hole in the centre of a doughnut, weird or just a plain loser.

I have often observed that as soon as I engage someone in conversation that is alone, they are quick to point out that they either have a partner lurking nearby, resting in their room, or recovering from a hangnail operation in the hospital – in other words, they aren’t alone. 
 

I like to think that they may be bordering on something close to envy when learning I am travelling alone, but usually they just find a reason to move to another table. This may tell more about me than it does of them.

Yea, the road to enlightenment is long and difficult. Don’t forget to bring snacks and magazines.
 

By the way, I found the tree that Constables Davis and Karen lurked behind trying to catch speeders on Corner Gas.

We often don’t take time to contemplate, to reflect on our experiences fully until we are alone. Many of us are not brave enough to delve to the depths of the wellspring to bring up forgotten gems, and scrape off the grit. As we grow and change, we may come to understand our experiences differently and do the hardest thing ever – forgive ourselves, leading us to our deepest bravery. To overcome loneliness, we first have to be aware we are lonely, then confront its lurking shadows. We cannot bypass it. The goal is to be comfortable being alone with ourselves without disassociating from the world.

Loneliness is a paper cup.

Nowadays, we can’t even be comfortably alone with a coffee without barricading ourselves behind a screen, barely lifting our heads. Or we grab a coffee To Go, not sitting to enjoy it in a proper mug, converse with someone, or daydream.

Loneliness can make us more capable of true intimacy – if we ever get the opportunity. 

By the way, the last time I was someone’s type, I was donating blood.
 

Loneliness makes us develop our own point of view, not repeating what we think everyone else thinks. Loneliness gives us character. And if all else is lost, I’m counting on it to make me unaccountably alluring and elegant.

The greatest dis-ease now facing humanity is a painful, throbbing loneliness and profound sense of disconnection – disconnection from their body, from others, and from the world. There is an undercurrent belief that everything should be pleasurable, mainly positive, and easy enough. This makes for a constant search for distractions, of busyness, short-circuiting learning and increasing emotional immaturity.  What separates the mature from the immature is, perhaps more than anything else, a content capacity for being on their own without distraction, to think about who they are and their experiences, allowing themselves to ‘feel’ their feelings, even when they may be difficult and hugely unwelcome. They don’t erect defences to hedge against loneliness by finding someone or something to prevent them from any risk of understanding their own mind.

As I walk back to the parking lot, I see the best thing ever.  A man and women were getting out of their car. Then out from the back tumbled 3 little preschoolers, sand pails and plastic shovels in hand.  No iPads. No iPhones. No beeping technology. They came to play on the sand dunes.

One can grow used to cosy mediocrity.