I’m in a cocoon, nestled in my duvet and a thick blanket. Something stirs, and I open my eyes.
I can only see the silhouette of a man.
He’s sitting in the driver’s seat of my SUV, hot steam bellowing out of what looks like a stainless steel travel mug. He takes a sip.
“Who….”
I try to speak, but words don’t come out. I realize I can’t move, either. I struggle to either speak or sit up, but neither ability comes to me.
“I’m just going to wait up and keep an eye out,” a gruff voice says. “Make sure no one comes by to bother you.”
It’s my Dad.
“Go back to sleep,” he says.
I wake up from the extremely vivid dream, in a breath gasping cinematic kind of way. I’m still sleeping in the back of my car, it’s still nightfall.
But my front seat is empty, as it was when I went to sleep.
I’m in Rockland, Maine. It’s late August, and I’ve spent the past few days helping Nicole, an internet stranger turned friend, renovate her vintage trailer.
“You’re going to do what?” my mother had asked the day before I left, after I casually mentioned I had met Nicole online.
My mom, I suspect, has gotten used to my millennial/hipster/gypsy mumbo jumbo, and typically tunes it out. I was visiting my family in upstate New York for a few weeks when I announced I’d be driving up to Maine for Labor Day.
I mentioned the RV renovation, the car camping, and the time I’d be away, but I failed to assert the fact that I didn’t know my host. It wasn’t until she asked specifically about who Nicole was that I disclosed the connection.
“It’s a work trade kind of thing,” I explained to her, as she drove us through downtown Rochester. “I help her with this, I stay with her for free.”
“That is…” she stammered. “So weird.”
But it’s not, really. Anyone in the travel community knows that. For my mom though, who brought us all to fun, family friendly Wildwood, NJ for vacation, renting a beach adjacent condo, it was.
It was threatening and something ripped from a news headline.
“Your reckless daughter stays with an internet predator,” the newscaster in her mind reads, “You’re left with her dog and hipster shoebox apartment after she’s abducted by a cult.”
Of course, I was fine.
I drove up to Maine, passing through Vermont, where I stopped the car to look over the 100 mile view on Hogback Mountain.
I listened to public radio as I whizzed through the mountains into New Hampshire, where I couch surfed and explored Keene.
I stopped in Portsmouth, grabbing one of the best breakfasts I’ve ever had at Colby’s Breakfast and Lunch.
There were times I was nervous. There were the minutes after I pulled up to the home of the family I was couch surfing with, and realized I was about to go to sleep in a stranger’s home.
There was the time I was walking through downtown Brattleboro and a man with no shoes, struggling to remain conscious, approached me and asked me to use my cell phone.
Because when you’re traveling alone, the awareness of your vulnerability is heightened. Significantly. It’s not all Instagram filters and solo travel hashtags. You realize that you need to depend on yourself, and the kindness and decency of strangers, rather than familiar faces and reliable neighbors.
After I arrived in Rockland, however, I relaxed. The quiet seaside town, with it’s pops of color and vibrant waterfront is anything but intimidating. I pulled into Nicole’s driveway to find her sitting outside waiting for me, and I was put at ease.
Everything was going to be great.
It was. I spent nearly a week and a half putting up wallpaper, as we listened to trip hop and talked about our travels. I helped her make beds and vacuum rooms in her Airbnbs, even staying in one for most of my trip.
I woke up every morning to the sounds of gulls, and fell asleep to the distant echo of ship horns wafting across the harbor.
We drank affogatos at Rock City Coffee Roasters, and shared a perfect pizza at Fireside in nearby Camden. As we folded sheets together, we laughed and chatted about our common dating experiences, our families, and our shared interest in film. I carefully washed out our breakfast dishes as she told me all of the benefits of raw food, something she was really passionate about.
When I wasn’t working with Nicole, I explored. I sat in Fog Bar and Cafe, a downtown restaurant, and drank red wine while watching Casablanca.
I hiked up Mount Battie, and unsatisfied with my lack of exhaustion, hiked an additional two miles up to the adjacent overlook.
I wandered out to Rockland Harbor Breakwater Light, snapped pictures of the sailboats.
As I wandered around the lighthouse, I felt a profound sadness as I watched all of the people around me talk to each other. They walked up and down the rocks holdings hands, as I just carefully navigated around them, trying not to fall in a hole.
But there was this authenticity to that sadness, a depth that I had only scratched the surface of before.
It was if I was meeting myself for the first time. Meeting a girl who craved solitude, not because she disliked people, but because she desperately just wanted space to let herself be whatever she wanted.
A girl who loved the stillness of quiet woods, who craved time to scratch away in her journal. A girl who felt nothing but absolute bliss when she was wrapped up in blankets, in the back of her SUV, falling asleep under a bed of stars.
A girl who liked solitude.
When I got back to my parents home, I packed up to go back to North Carolina. Surprisingly, not alone. When I returned home to Durham, where I was living at the time, I brought my brother with me. He was having his own life-changing revelations at the time, and decided to move in with me for a few weeks.
One night, as he put on his headphones to play a game on his computer, I felt antsy. I decided to find adventure, and after skimming the Raleigh sub-reddit, I pulled on my favorite black sweatshirt.
“I’ll be back around midnight,” I told him. “I’ll text you if it’s later.”
I got in my car, and drove through the darkness of the night. I felt invisible, like I did that night asleep in my car. It I was the same solace and comfort. When I reached my destination nearly a half hour later, there were only a handful of people outside.
I recall walking up the creaky wooden steps. I’ve never been to the brewery before, but I quickly found what I was looking for – a few random people watching American Horror Story: Roanoke on the big screen TV behind the bar.
My eyes fixed on Evan Peters as I ordered a beer, any beer. I spent the next two hours engaged in conversation with the girl besides me, a pretty blonde girl named Kat, who loves Peters as much as I do.
I finally headed home, promising to return next week with my copy of The Time Traveler’s Wife for her to borrow. As I found my way back to Durham, the similarly clear night reminds me of my quiet time in Rockland. I hear the voice of Elizabeth Gilbert, with one of my favorite lines from Eat, Pray, Love.
“Sono solo,” she says, as I smile, driving over the city line.
“I am alone.”