You know what I thought was a good idea? To just leave everything behind and go hiking in the mountains for five days.

It’s now 15 days until I’m leaving for Florida. There’s a certain role I’m stepping into, and I like who I am with the people there, but it’s gonna be intense. And here, everything is happening. Summer is beginning and everything else is ending and needs to be celebrated, there’s so much I need to be here too.

So I just wanted to spend some time being no one. Not seeing anyone. I didn’t want to paint, or write, or even pray about anything very specific. Just be.

It was more difficult than I thought. It’s that thing I forget and relearn every time I go somewhere new, that you’re still gonna be yourself there. The mountains are unchanging and quiet, but I am not. I was walking and walking and walking, and my mind was spinning.

It was a good different though, more of a challenge. It’s stupid to go hiking in May, because all of the snow hasn’t melted yet, and there’s too much water everywhere. I’d literally follow the path and there would be a lake in the middle of the way all of a sudden. At least I got my solitude.

You don’t necessarily worry less in these situations. At least I didn’t. Just about other things, about having brought enough food, being able to chop the wood, get the fire started and find water. At one point I burned my entire face in the sun, and rubbed ashes all over it the next day to protect it (I don’t really know if it worked, but it made me feel cool even if it probably looked really stupid).

Anyway. I walked a lot, read a lot on my e-reader, and wrote a thing or two even if I wasn’t supposed to. The whole thing made me feel accomplished, I think. Happy. I wasn’t there to find something or learn something, but it feels like I still did, though I don’t quite know what.

But next time I’ll bring company and watercolours.