Alone :-)

by Kelly McCalla (United States of America)

I didn't expect to find USA

Too in a hurry to beat the setting sun, I squinted as I turned the last corner into the Upheaval Dome Trailhead parking lot in Canyonlands National Park. To my surprise it was completely empty. Not a car. I knew it was the “slow” season in mid-October, but is there such a thing in a National Park? I had passed plenty of SUVs and motorhomes in the Mesa Arch, Aztec Butte and Whale Rock turnouts. Still, here I was, perfectly alone, as I slipped on my backpack stuffed with a blanket, flashlight and water. I’m not sure why I had come here. I‘d left at the end of my conference in Salt Lake City 6 hours early and just headed south for an adventure. Without expecting to have been standing in the park entrance visitor center, my eyes paused on this dot; I think because it was where the road ended. A legend indicated parking, a trail, and nothing else. Darkness grew thicker as I climbed the rough path. Little stones clicked as my boots brushed them together. My middle-aged muscles streched in a way I knew I’d remember more than usual in the morning as my feet reached for flat foot placements. A lot of ups and some rather sharp downs as I moved through small ravines, and 1.7 miles later I stood on the edge of a wide relatively flat shelf. The sun had left the sky completly by now and only thin bands of orange-yellow and red reflected onto the low clouds to the west. A single star had popped out and then there was the blackness. No lights or towers, even the moonrise was two hours off—I had checked. Wrapping my blanket around me, I leaned against the shapeless shadow of a large stone and listened and learned. An hour later this is what I wrote: As I lay here on hard red stone lost in shadow at the edge of a black canyon-like crater, it is one of the first times in my life, maybe the first time in my life, I am glad I’m alone. It’s not that I don’t miss having someone close, but if someone else were here I wouldn’t be able to feel this perfect pure silence— There is no sound and it has wrapped itself around me like my mummy bag, keeping warmth in and cold out. Usually, even in the heart of a pine forest or standing next to a still lake at midnight a breeze will brush past my ear or I will move and my jacket will rustle . . . But not here. Somehow, in this place the stars are louder than the earth. They light up the blackness, and I see the colors of stars, like leaves rustling in the night sky. I can hear it all, but in reality there is no sound— No actual tree leaves. No loons calling. No water moving. No boats. No cars. No horses . . . Not even any crickets! It is so stunningly awesome, this silence. Powerful. Peaceful Comforting. So less scary than in the nightmare dreams I’ve had all my life of inch deep black pools where nothing moved and sound died. This is the silence of life. The life of a planet perhaps? The life of the stars? Maybe this is my future— Silence and nothing more? I don’t know, but right now I don’t care! I know what love is thanks to you. I also know being alone and bad choices. But in the silence there is such beauty . . . and so many stars . . . and the universe of hope . . . and right after I wrote that last line in my iPhone notes (as I often do to not forget) I looked up and there was a shooting star . . . your gift of friendship to me I suspect— Thank You . . . Girl Made of the Milky Way! If you had asked me what I expected to find when I had gone to that spot I could not have told you. Perhaps peace and a little quiet from a life I often let get too busy. I don’t really know for sure. But, I promise you, I did not expect to find me.