I try every time I go away solo, to get some time alone in the woods, away from everything and everyone. No electricity, no internet, no cellular service. I think I do this, in part, because it unnerves me. It makes me long for things that I abuse and over use everyday. This constant, unremitting connectedness that isn’t really connectedness at all. I am so tethered to it. So completely owned by it, I feel the need to at least give up one day of vacation, to the societal norms and take back life in its more simplistic form.
Last night I stayed in Soul Wood. A tiny cabin in the woodsy coastal part of the Sourthern Coast of Australia. Trekking down the “road” and I use that word very lightly, it was really more of a path that was almost large enough for a car. As I left the highway and descended into a place where technology has no meaning or purpose, I saw my first kangaroo. Like a thief burgling a home, he darted in front of my car, quickly, agiley and was gone before it even registered what it was in my mind. So weird, I would think that kangaroos and woodland areas would not be a good mix. But they exist here nevertheless. And are quite adept at navigating the forest floor as it were.
Soul Wood sits in a clearing of tall eucalyptus trees. Large lizards lounged on the grassy area and seemed somewhat offended by my arrival. Apparently no one asked them if it would be ok if I spent the night. They darted towards a brackish swamp that I immediately identified as something I would NOT investigate further. Having done little to no research on this trip, I am assuming crocs are everywhere, like Florida with gators. If there is any kind of water, you can be safe to assume there could be a gator in it. I am applying the same thought process here, except to crocs. I do not want to have a run in with one of those! Although I would like to see one from afar...like a safe distance kind of far.
I spent the evening reading on the porch. No music, just the sound of the forrest waking up to night’s arrival. The cicadas were first with a resounding chorus of humming that at times was quite deafening. They subsided but they began with quite a start. There were the calls of birds that I could not identify. Lonesome, lost and almost tortured sounds of a bird quite desperately searching for its lover. I could relate to that...fundamentally.
I ate a cup-a-noodles for dinner since that was all I could forage at the local gas station. There was no grocery store or restaurant nearby. When I ask the gas station attendant about places to eat, he said, “well, you’ve got what we have right here.”
Cup-a-noodles without the flavor packet it was then. And you know what, it was just fine. I watched night fall and ate noodles on my porch, watching to see if perhaps the ensuing darkness might bring me another kangaroo or a wombat. No such luck.
After night landed safely, I went inside, washed my face, left the screen door open and climbed into bed. I read for a little while longer and then off to sleep I went. Funny, at home, I have convinced myself that I can’t fall asleep unless it is to Netflix. I haven’t done that once since I was here. Content instead with the sounds of crashing waves or cicadas crying to the night. Turns out I prefer the later...
I slept soundly and peacefully. The first part of the night dreaming, and the rest of the night, deep in slumber. It was nice to feel unplugged and disconnected from all the things society keeps insisting I need. That I keep insisting I need. I keep buying it, but last night showed me that I don’t need any of that really. I am good, with a book and a cup-a-noodles, in the woods with nothing else to do.
I felt my soul grow taller here. To reach up towards the heavens like the trees that surround me in this protective clearing. I felt like I was cleared from the ties that bind and curtail my internal evolution. I enjoyed the solitude and peace and I wished to stay longer. Grateful, of course, for the time I got to spend but stoking the longing for all my days to be like this. A simple life, off the grid, in some woodland space. I don’t know if I will ever get there but I can tell you that my soul calls for it. Quite desperately at times, like those birds in the dusk of a day, attempting to link up with their other half...
Soul Wood...soul would.
Yes, I guess it would...
Again...still.
Always.
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