Solitude

Solitude. Some people thrive on it. Some fear it. Some are uncomfortable with those moments alone with your own thoughts and nothing else to distract you from a poignant consciousness of your very existence.

When you see a tiny, lone cabin like this, a relic of a former age, hardly large enough to fit a bed, a chair and a table, the imagination is stimulated and you begin to ask questions. Who lived here? Were they all alone? Did they survive here through cold winter months confined by a fortress of snow? How did they handle the solitude? There was no electricity to power a radio. There were no cell phones, no TV, no movies to stream; the nearest neighbor miles away.

The challenge of a location like this is the isolation and the solitude. How would you occupy your time? In former days, the time here would have been filled with cutting wood for heat, meal preparation, food gathering, prep and storage, maintaining your shelter, watching out for dangerous, animals, and if you were a miner, searching endlessly, digging, scraping, panning for that elusive vision of a better and easier life. Today, a place like this offers the opportunity to escape to solitude; to contemplate, to set aside distractions and evaluate your life. Are you comfortable with who you are, what you’ve done, where your life is going? And what about beyond this present life? Is there more? Is there accountability? Are you ready for it?

Photo taken at Molas Pass, Silverton, CO.  Early October 2022 on a foggy morn.