Neon Trees And Solitude

I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric YAWP over the roofs of the world.
- Walt Whitman, "Song of Myself"

"Are you going over for the funeral?"

Blink. "Um, no ..."

"Oh, okay. Thirty-six dollars then. You're taking your car?"

"Yeah." I handed the girl my money and asked where to wait in line. She sent me on my way and greeted the car behind me.

Saturday had started freakishly early in the morning, at least for someone like me who doesn't hunt or fish. By 5:15 I had showered, dressed, packed a backpack, and was on the road. The sun rose somewhere north of Tomahawk, after US-51 became a two-lane, 55-mile-per-hour highway.

I spent the next hour speeding through forests of evergreens intermixed with flaming oaks and maples. Fall was in full swing here and it was perfect, but there were precious few people out yet to enjoy it. The time would come -- it was possibly the last beautiful Saturday of the season -- but for now I had the world to myself.

My mocha at the Black Cat Coffeehouse in Ashland was just as good as I had remembered -- not overly sweet, a great balance of coffee and chocolate, surprisingly light. The combination of that and my previous cup of coffee on an otherwise empty stomach probably wasn't a great idea; caffeine beelined for my bloodstream and I was Awake. And perhaps just a little Jittery. Oh well.

The ferry ride was cold. A whitecapped Lake Superior surrounded us and tossed the ferry in such a way that it was as though we were riding on the shoulders of a lumbering giant. I stood on the deck, my feet set in subway stance, my hands stuffed into my sweatshirt pockets, staring out at the islands to the north. I had needed this, all of it, right down to the wind and water spray.

We landed at Madeline Island and I drove Sophie onto the dock and back to solid ground, immediately aiming for the opposite end of the island and the parts I didn't explore before.

For the next six hours, I didn't speak to another human being. If I felt like talking, it was directed at Sophie, or myself, or God, or the seagulls. I hiked, I searched, I sat next to the water and ate my lunch. I thought seriously about my recent frustrations with the people I knew and humanity in general, and I let my barbaric yawp echo across the lake. Gradually, ever so slowly, I started feeling better.

I can't be positive why things have been bothering me so much lately but I haven't been myself for quite some time. I needed fresh scenery, fresh faces, a change of pace and routine. Getting up that early was definitely a shift; leaving Wausau for the day was necessary. The hiking helped my head clear, but the solitude was what really made all the difference. I didn't have to worry about if anyone else was having fun, or whether or not there was enough conversation, or if I had enough cash to get food. I was welcome to eat only the pretzels and the sandwich I brought with me, welcome to dawdle on a beach or run down the trail, welcome to stop at the side of the road to take a picture. Welcome to yell at nothing and laugh at my own jokes without fear of judgment or that lovely "What the heck is wrong with her?" look that I get more often than I would like.

I needed out, if only for a day.

Refreshed and elated at my geocaching record for the day (three out of four caches found, the fourth being the one that stumped me last year as well), I pointed Sophie back toward the ferry docks. Back in LaPointe, I slowed to a crawl so as to avoid funeral-goers, wedding-goers, and crazy Amish on bicycles. It seemed the island was open to groups that day but not many others -- which meant I would spend my next ferry ride just as alone as I had spent the day. That was more than okay with me; I wasn't quite ready to head back to my busy reality. There was a wedding reception that night and who knew what else afterwards -- but I was ready to deal with people again, at least for the evening, as long as I could wring every last solitary moment out of the day first.

One ferry ride and a three-hour drive later, I was back in Wausau, the city just as dark as it had been when I left -- but considerably more alive. It was time for me to rejoin the living.