One of the things about being on the road is that it is very accommodating to introversion and solitude.
While many might be surprised that I am introverted, and someone who loves being alone - I am aware that it’s not a vibe I project, since I’m very friendly, conversational with strangers, and will meet the eyes of anyone I pass - my cup is pretty full just with my dear partner, our cat, and a couple of dear friends and a brother (we text mostly, not daily even, thank god).
So far, we’ve moved around a lot and it’s been easy to meet our need for quiet and solitude. I am happy to meet up with friends from my communities in the cities we travel through - I have a lot to give them, knowing that it will be a long time before we catch up again.
Yet I don’t think that RV life is for extroverts unless they are doing it with their family. I say this because I met an extroverted woman who just lept into the RV life, and it seems clear to me that this kind of living alone is not particularly conducive to getting her needs met, perhaps at the very least because now my own needs for solitude are being infringed upon by her need for constant neighborliness.
My partner pointed out my weakness: I have difficulty saying to someone that I don’t have time to chat because I don’t want to be rude and interrupt. I, more than anything, am intensely aware of being fully seen and deeply heard. It’s a bit of a code of conduct, I think, to give to others what I deeply desire for myself. Yet it often means finding myself still listening an hour later while also strategizing how to now disentangle myself from this situation without being disrespectful.
The irony of all this is that part of what I love about this nomad lifestyle is meeting so many different people, people I might not throw myself into company otherwise. And this experience is, I feel, part of how I maintain my empathetic muscles and find compassion for people. This is an experience I think is largely missing from American life - Americans don’t seem to travel much, and so ideological bubbles can grow and flourish, leading to the extreme divisiveness that we are experiencing. (And these ideological tribes are strengthened to cult status through cancellation and echo chambers full of devout choir members.)
But, as our two-week stay in the San Jacinto mountains revealed to me, if I want to get the work of writing and art done, more than needing time alone, I need to be away from populations. We’d been in the city for almost a week and I find that I don’t sleep well, and suddenly, those dozens of ideas or partial writings I’d started are difficult for me to even find the threads to begin, much less finish weaving a tapestry. I’d resorted to posting photos of my art and poetry that I wrote quite some time ago.
We’ve now returned to Idyllwild. It’s taken me a few days to get back into my writing and reading routine. In a couple of weeks, I’ll be flying to Pittsburgh, alone, to attend my mother’s funeral, with 6 of my 7 siblings, their spouses, children, and my father. A total of 20 plus people. Mostly, I just want to see my father and hold my new niece. There’s talk of going to a major league baseball game. I just want to get in and get out.
My mother was extroverted. When, as a twelve-year-old, I spent my summer going to and from the library, curling up in my bed with books, she called me “anti-social”, it seemed nonsensical - most of my siblings are introverted and many of them read more than I did (or so it seemed). But perhaps, unlike them, I was never quite able to stand up for my need for solitude, to just take what I needed when I needed it. Perhaps my need for being seen, heard, and understood superseded my need for solitude, and, so, my turning inward seemed antithetical to my more social show of regular extroversion.
Somehow, even being in the proximity of people, my energy is sapped, albeit more slowly than when in direct engagement with a group, but sapped nonetheless. I find myself drawn to the constant peripheral awareness of who is in my immediate environment, what they might be saying and doing. I know this is a developed vigilance from some of the chaos of our home - if, perhaps, I could know who was doing what and where, might I find some safety. When I was first married, I would every now and then seek out my (former) husband to see where he was and what he was doing. It was a strange neuroticism, which has softened over the years, as I have found greater safety in my skin, in my home, in the world. I have learned how to create and even stretch empathic boundaries, to quiet the radio signal, and tuck my antennae away while also still maintaining some awareness. Except in the city, where the multiplicities of radio static reach such levels as to threaten to short my circuits altogether.
So, yes, when our new friend came by, calling out, “are you home?” I slid down and pretended I wasn’t.
And besides, my home is in Baja, a small, remote Mexican town of about 6,000 humans. So, no I’m not home. Not yet. But soon.
I totally get what you are saying here. I am quite self sufficient socially. Not that I don't like to socialize, and I really do enjoy getting together and connecting with others, sharing thoughts and finding out about their lives, but I like it to have a warning, and not too open ended. ha ha (no emoji available?) Glad you are finding solitude and also found you kitten! Idyllwild becoming a second home...