“We are all alone, born alone, die alone, and we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way. I do not say lonely – at least, not all the time, but essentially, and finally, alone.” – Hunter S. Thompson, The Proud Highway.

In a sense, we are  all alone in the world, our souls, values, identities and dreams are unique, they are ours.

Thomas Merton says to know oneself and love another, we must also be able to be alone. Joseph Campbell says the hero journey, the search for fulfillment, must be a solitary journey, no one else can share it. No one saves us but ourselves wrote Gautama Buddha, no one can, and no one may.

We ourselves must walk the path.

I have been alone or felt alone for much of my life, for almost all of my first six years living on the first Bedlam Farm, I was there by myself.  At times, I nearly perished from loneliness, it nearly destroyed me. I have also experienced the awful loneliness that can occur in the company of others. At times, I have loved being alone, and need it still.

In February, Maria will be going off to India for two weeks to teach the victims of sex trafficking how to make potholders and other fiber art to sell there. She and I have begun talking about what that will mean for  each of us. We are so important to one another.

Our experiences with aloneness with be different, I think. Maria will be engaged, busy, exhausted, always in the company of like-minded others, on a good mission,  and exhilarated to teach I imagine. She will not be alone. Nothing makes Maria happier than doing good, and she will be doing much good.

I will be on the farm, mostly by myself, being me. We will both obviously miss each other, we are very close and connected, and it will be disorienting.

I am not quite as strong and mobile as I was, and two weeks alone on a farm in February might be challenging, especially if the weather is as bad as it is expected to be. But I don’t expect to ask for any additional help, unless I am  overwhelmed by blizzards and mounds of snow.

But it will not be the same kind of aloneness as I experienced so often in my life. When I was very young, and then again when I was older, I was nearly crippled by loneliness, the thought if makes me shiver.

For one thing, this is voluntary, not involuntary, aloneness. I know people who have lost their partners, that is a very different kind of loneliness.

Maria will be gone for two weeks, not the same as if she was gone for good or for months. Technology will make it possible for us to be close and connected – we text, e-mail, take videos, write blogs, we will be aware of the other no matter where we are. I can read her blog, get photos texted to me, read her e-mails, talk to her on her cell phone. I will send her photos of Fate and the donkeys and Chloe every day, at least once.

Beyond that, I think this trip is a landmark for her, and I am happy about that. She will become even more confident and strong.

It will be a creative challenge for me. Maria is a dervish, she has a nearly inexhaustible supply of energy.

Can I properly manage the farm by myself again? Can I handle the hard work? Keep the house clean and shop efficiently and eat in a healthy way? Make sure to connect to the animals? Will I write about the experience, as I often do, and find a way to make it work for me? Will it open me up creatively in terms of my writing and photography?

Being alone is often good for writers, as it has often been productive for me. Fewer distractions, more emotion and perspective. I love writing in the winter, there is no temptation to wander too long outside.  I expect I will get up early – nothing to keep me in bed – and get to work early. I imagine I will deepen my connection to the animals, spending more time alone with the pony and the donkeys especially.

I see myself holed up in my study at night, working on the blog and the book,  swathed in sweaters, sipping tea, listening to the howl of the winter winds outside of my bedroom, snow piling up everywhere, taking pictures of the eerily beautiful winter pasture. February is our worst winter month, always.

And I will be busy. Running a farm in February is always demanding, always challenging. Animals to feed, water to check, manure to shovel, cats to feed, dogs to exercise, fires to stoke and maintain, wood to haul, snow to shovel.  (And Romney sheep to lamb in the bitter cold? I will surely hell for help then.)

I will be tired, glad to get to sleep. I will walk in the deep woods, snow permitting, and haul out the manure and bring out the hay, as usual.

Maria and I know that we will miss one another, that is a given, but in different ways, I think. She will be up to her neck in work, exploration, absorbing an exotic and very foreign country, dealing with traumatized young women who are victims of men in the worst possible way. I am  certain she will love her students, and they will love her, and that alone will be transformative for her.

And think of the art she will create when she returns from India with all kinds of exotic fabrics and colors dancing in her head.

I believe this trip will be a profoundly important gift to her, and to us. The best way to have a happy marriage is to have a happy and fulfilled partner. I would be horrified if she spent much time worried about me, or if she ever failed to take a trip on my account. That would be a great failure on my part.

On this trip, I doubt she will have much time to miss anyone, that is as it should be. I know I will at times feel the pang of loneliness, the acute melancholy I have experienced so often in my life. This sadness is familiar to me, and cleansing.

I am nothing but overjoyed about the trip. Every day she is there will lift me up and enrich my existence.I can do my part by being okay, and better than that, busy and fulfilled. I love being tested, I expect to do well. And after all, writing is something you do alone, its a profession for introverts who want to tell you a story but who are often too shy or odd to be with you while you hear it.

I know it is very hard to be close to writers, no one was every as close to me as Maria was, from the moment we met. It is not hard to be close to her.

We both remember well the days not so long ago when such a journey would have been unthinkable for her, now, not taking the trip is what is unthinkable.

I will be in my usual haunts, here on the farm and in town, following many, if not all, of my usual patterns. More and more, I see this as a spiritual opportunity for me, it is, in solitude that we see ourselves and listen to ourselves and grow and change.

I look forward to seeing how aloneness, such a natural and familiar state to me, feels now. I want to see what it is I can do and cannot do. I want to appreciate her journey and also appreciate mine.