“I am not alone. The whole earth rises to meet the soles of my feet.”
-Sue Moon
I am headed to Japan in three days. Japan: seat of my Soto Zen practice. Land of design and ritual and etiquette and obsession, and vending machines and complicated toilets. I’m a little scared of course – I always am, in the leadup. What if I get lost, what if I get lonely? Well guess what: my sense of direction sucks and I will be far from home. Lost and lonely are givens. The rest is mystery.
I’ve been travelling solo since I first boarded a flight to Asia oh so many years ago –when contacting home meant standing in line for hours at a dusty long-distance phone office, or finding a well-worn airmail letter, poste restante. Otherwise you would just be simply gone, entirely out of touch, for days or months or years. In the pre-digital days alone was truly alone. Alone is more crowded now.
I will find myself on a ferry, mesmerized by the patterns of the waves. Wandering city alleyways or dirt roads at my own dawdling pace, pausing, kicking stones. Eating what I want, where I want, when I want. Poking into holes, peering into windows, invited into homes by curious strangers. In moments of solo travel my body turns inside out to merge with the air. An exhilarating rush of freedom comes, only when I am by myself and on the move in unknown lands – and, that electrical sense of presence which I can never fully experience when distracted by company.
I don’t always go alone. I have travelled with friends and with lovers, and with people met along the way. Shared adventures can be rich but I return to the solo path to learn my own fears and strengths and desires. The solo path is where I meet me.
And then: loneliness. Confusion. Someone – please, anyone – help me read this map, bring a cool towel when I’m sick, taste this dish with me, take my selfie, share this memory. Loneliness is the one friend I’m sure to meet along the way.
On my last trip (to Guanajuato) I felt the fine twinge of loneliness and decided that the next day I would find myself a companion. In the morning I climbed to the guesthouse rooftop with my cup of nescafe, and a friendly Belgian man said he was going for a hike, and would I like to come? Yes, I would! We got lost in the dusty mountains, got found, shared crackers and cheese, drank coconut juice, parted ways.
Emboldened, I asked a travelling artist if he would like to visit some museums with me. He agreed. We went off together and I soon recalled the flip side of companion travel. We had different interests, different budgets, different timelines. A tall man, one of his strides equalled three of mine. I enjoyed spending the day with him but when we parted I breathed a sigh of relief and returned to my warm self-companionship. A compatible travel buddy is a treasure (hi Jenn!) but mismatched travellers create their own movable hell. Travel is stressful; group travel even more so. Even best friends and partners sometimes fail to make good travel buddies. For all its challenges, travelling alone is infinitely better than travelling with the wrong people.
This trip will span a total of 18 days. I will fly into Osaka, spend a few days at an ancient monastery, bike the Shimanami Kaido, ferry to Hiroshima to poke around, then bullet train to ancient capital Nara, some mountain village hiking, then Kyoto to slalom tourists on my rent-a-bike, and home. Starting from the ultra-rustic (Toshoji monastery: rice gruel and the whacking stick) and working my way up to relative luxury – a snazzy traditional ryokan atop a mountain, accessed by cable tram. I’m gonna take a lot of trains! From the 350-km-hr Shinkansen to rattly little single-car locals (begging the question, is a single-car train really a train?). The fact is I will go almost anywhere if it means I get to take a train.
People ask me if I’m excited. I’m a little suspicious of that word – ‘excited’ is too close to expectation. But I am curious, and stoked. I’m ready to fledge again. Flying solo.
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