The complexities and risks of being a person who seeks 'aloneness' in nature

If you know much about me, you probably know two things:

1. I love to be outside
2. I enjoy solitude

Lately I've been thinking about this combination a lot. It leaves me vulnerable. The places where I'm happiest being are places that are probably not considered safe by most standards. I like to go off the beaten path and I like to do it on my own.

Last week, I went to the lake and hopped off the trail to explore a woodland area, a floodplain where, decades and decades ago, Cyrus and Amelia Lundell explored and documented the botanical habitat. The deeper I went, the more at peace I felt - I could see the passage of time written on the expanse of the forest. The sounds of people walking on the trail disappeared; the sounds of nature appeared. I watched spiders hunt; I watched native bees circle around; I was more at peace than I'd been for a long, long time. It's a peace that I only have when I'm wholly on my own, in places where I'm not interacting with other people. This need for aloneness, especially in nature, is something people close to me struggle to understand or - worse - criticize. But it's how I'm wired, for better or worse.

As I walked deeper, I came across signs of human habitation - a pile of clothing; empty gallon water bottles.

How safe was I? I don't know; I didn't want to find out. I could easily have been considered an unwelcome presence, a threat entering somebody else's space.

I know I am vulnerable when I go off the beaten path.

I left, my ears piqued for the sound of footsteps, or twigs cracking, of the possibility that I was being followed or watched.

The week before, I was scouting a place to blacklight for moths near the riparian corridor by my home. It is a place I consider to be safe.

I was lost in thought when I heard a crashing sound, something else in the woods. Something big, something close. On the game trail?

I went silent; I listened.

A voice. A man, angry, violent; speaking menacing words. I heard the sounds of punching fists. The rustling of nearby leaves, the movement of branches. Close - twenty feet, fifteen feet? Growing closer.

Suddenly I'm vulnerable again.

After some time, I realized the voice must have belonged to a person walking along the nearby street, ripping at tree branches overhanging the road while having an argument on the phone. It wasn't directed at me; I was hidden, an unseen ghost.

There are more stories like this in my repertoire of experiences.

I'm not careless, though some people might get the sense I am from reading this. I know and respect that bad things can happen to people in spaces like this. The deal I've made with myself is this: if I'm off the beaten path, I keep my senses sharp. If I visit a place that is feels unsafe, or if I see signs of habitation or illegal activity, I don't go again. If it's the kind of place somebody says "make sure to bring a friend" I'm unlikely to go at all.

Don't get me wrong - I enjoy companionship in nature - but it's typically not restorative to me the same way that being alone is, save for with the rare person with whom communal silence is comfortable. And I'll admit part of my reason for writing this is to sort out some feelings over the loss of a friendship with somebody who fit the bill; but not all friendships can survive certain turmoils. Life can be messy that way.

So, lately, I find myself balancing my need for solitude and aloneness in nature with the risk of safety. It's a risk I take because without it, my mental health is at greater risk. Every part of my core is shredded away when I don't take this time for myself; I can offer myself to the world best when I have the buffer that for me only comes from long swaths of time spent being alone outside.

So many people don't know how to square a person like me who so deeply seeks a high degree of solitude and 'aloneness' to function. Society tends to lump us into a category of strange folk.

But I have a feeling I am not alone in being wired this way, especially in this community. So for that, hello my fellow strange folk, if you are reading.

I write this just to write it, to sort my thoughts; not for answers or solutions or criticisms.

[Edited: I turned comments off initially, expecting to hear notes that I ought not to explore on my own - but have turned them back on]

Posted on September 13, 2024 05:13 AM by scarletskylight