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I started a post on solo travel several years back but abandoned it. As so many seem to view travel without a partner incredibly brave, I’ll share photos and observations about my recent trip here. I’ll break into parts for those who might only be interested in parts.

Part I War in the Neighborhood

May 2022 Vladimir Putin had ordered Russian troops to invade Ukraine three months earlier. I had a trip planned to Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland – all of which border either Russia or Ukraine. Friends ask are you sure that’s a good idea. They’re all NATO countries so an expansion of the war into any of them would be a major escalation. And the Baltic state part of the trip was with Road Scholar. I was pretty sure they wouldn’t be leading tours in the region if they didn’t think it was safe. Still there were unsettling reminders of the hostilities like President Biden’s visit to Rzeszów, my former Peace Corps site in Poland just a few weeks prior to my departure.

Strong anti Putin sentiment was evident in the Baltic states. I created a video with photos from the Russian embassies in Tallinn and Riga as well as some of the signs around town. At the end you see examples of Ukrainian flags flying in front of businesses, monuments, libraries in Poland as well as a pro Zelensky poster for sale at the University of Warsaw.

https://youtu.be/TaDyMkVv9QE

People in the Baltic states seemed more openly defiant of Putin than did the Poles. Of course, I didn’t go to the Russian embassy in Warsaw to see if protests were evident there as well. They seemed to be going about the business of coping with the increased foreign military presence and three million Ukrainian refugees in their country.

We heard from one of our speakers in the Baltics that they felt they’ve done all they can do to integrate into the west. They joined NATO. They joined the EU. They joined the Eurozone and they became part of the Schengen Area so one can freely travel between these countries. Now, they’re just waiting to see if they’re considered expendable should Putin make a move against them. I guess it doesn’t hurt to let it be openly known that any incursions will be met with resistance.

One of the other members of my tour mentioned being surprised by not seeing Ukrainian refugees in the Baltics as he had expected. I was credulous. I’d seen many. But then I realized I hadn’t “seen” as many as I’d heard. As I have at least a limited proficiency in Polish and Russian, i soon learned to recognize Ukrainian when I heard it spoken. I think many have an expectation of what a refugee looks like from newspaper images of Syrian refugees trying to get into Europe. Or those on boats picked up coming from Haiti or Africa. No, Ukrainian refugees are generally white and look and dress pretty much like the people in the neighboring countries hosting them. Nor are they necessarily destitute. My aunt pointed out to me a late model Mercedes with Ukrainian plates which drove by while we were waiting outside a grocery store near Gdańsk. But they are all displaced from their homes and many of their family members and friends. One telltale clue as to a refugee family was the absence of men as they had stayed behind to fight in the war. I saw one young woman in the Kraków train station waiting for the same train I was. She had a baby in a stroller and two large suitcases she was trying to manage. I presumed she was heading back toward Ukraine. Many were. My train was packed. It’s final destination was Przemyśl, on the Ukrainian border. Why would people be heading back into a war zone you might ask? As I understood it, the employment situation was not an easy one for people who don’t speak the local languages. Most of the conversations I witnessed between Ukrainians and Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians and Poles were in English. That may get you a job in the service industry but probably not too helpful for professionals. And as the war drags on and becomes a war of attrition, it is increasingly difficult to accommodate the large number of refugees. Initially, many were put up in four star hotels. The hotels need paying guests the governments can’t foot the bill on an on going basis. Some of the refugees were being moved into student dormitories when they emptied out for the summer. I can see how it might look like a better option to take your chances at home especially if it’s been quiet there for a while. That’s why these seemingly random missile attacks seem particularly sadistic.

I recently ran across a couple of instances of anti-single bias. One was a question posed to Quora: Why are some people always single? It was followed by answers with anecdotes about single acquaintances’ dysfunctions. Another was a Facebook post from The School of Life: Two Reasons Why You Might Still Be Single. I found myself both fascinated and appalled by this seemingly antiquated notion that one must be coupled to be happy and fulfilled. If you’re not, surely there’s something wrong with you that you’ll need to fix so you can take your place among the normal happy people in society. Where on earth did this notion come from? Is it from breeding pairs? Is it from religious texts, e.g., Adam and Eve from the Old Testament?

I’ve had some fun with this by turning it around. What if being single were the norm and we assumed that normal, well-adjusted people functioned just fine on their own? Then we might question why some people seemed to find a need to be attached to another person. Terrence seems normal and confident and secure, why do you suppose he always has a girlfriend? There must be something lacking in him that he doesn’t seem to be able to remain single. Perhaps his mother didn’t pay enough attention to him. Psychotherapy may be able to help with his lack of self confidence and/or narcissism.

Of course, I’m being at least a bit facetious. But this blog is all about different paths. I think it’s time that we start questioning the norms handed down by society and stop condemning everyone who doesn’t fit as abnormal. There may well be more than one path toward contentment and fulfillment. Perhaps we need to listen more and preach less.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Excerpted from The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

I’d always felt drawn to this poem and the image of somehow being off the beaten path, of pursuing alternatives to the norm, and that that was okay.

But I’ve recently come to realize that the road I thought I’ve been on these past few years really isn’t much of a road. It’s more like one of those roads Google maps tries to get you on if you make the mistake of using it for navigation instructions in the mountains. At first it looks like a road.

Then it becomes something that might have been a logging road at one time. A bit further on, any past uses were probably limited to early settlers or fur trappers with wagons or horses. Eventually, you suspect that this is only a trail followed by migrating elk. If you have any sense at all, you’ve abandoned this “road” ages ago and are back on pavement or at least gravel.

Not me. I’ve been trying to make my way along this elk migration route for years now. This is just what one does when you’re the only daughter of a dying man, right? You keep plodding along and don’t ask questions about the journey. When you run into the inevitable boulder or downed tree blocking your way, you attempt to clear them. If you can’t, you make a slight diversion and keep on going the best you can day after day after day.

At one point, I thought I’d found a companion for part of this journey, a man who was in a similar situation with a dying father. I feel like I should’ve seen the warning signs. He was never with me on my path. He was quite literally phoning it in. But when he said he was not ready for a relationship, I heard, just wait and try to be patient, and someday he would be. So, I kept on plodding along alone on this nonexistent road checking in with him from time to time to see how he was doing. Could I move any of his boulders? I stored some of mine with him. He didn’t complain, but neither did he reciprocate. It was all one way.

Dad eventually passed on. Now that he was at peace, I finally had time to stop and take a look around at where I was and where I thought I was going. Low and behold when I came up for air and looked around, the man for whom I’d been waiting apparently was indeed ready for a relationship. With another woman. Not only that, it had been going on for some time even though he hadn’t thought to tell me. It was now at the point where she appeared to be playing an active and integral role in his life. Two deaths in a short period. One, I could mourn openly. The other, was a more private loss. The death of a story I’d told myself to keep going.  When he’d said he wasn’t ready for a relationship, I hadn’t let myself hear the unspoken but implied, with me.

So, I find myself sitting in a bit of a daze in the middle of this nonexistent road with no sense of direction. How cliché for a woman to be dependant on a man for direction. But the good thing about having no direction is that there’s really no wrong way to go. Anywhere I turn and head toward is the right way as it marks a new direction and a new beginning.

I think it’s time to abandon the road entirely, along with the related notion that there is some ultimate destination worth pursuing. Once I stopped trying to move boulders and trees so I could move myself, I caught sight through the trees of a beautiful green meadow in the distance. It may not lead anywhere. And I’ll almost certainly have to abandon the baggage I’ve been carrying to get there, but it looks so inviting. That’s where I’m headed.

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field.
I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,

the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase “each other” doesn’t make any sense.

mevlana jelaluddin rumi – 13th century

World Prayers

Like so many things in life, we can always blame our perceived inadequacies on our parents. I was raised by a mother who often told me “never be dependant on a man.” I took her advice to heart and set about to be entirely independent and self sufficient. Marriage was never a priority for me. I wasn’t going to be dependant on anyone and I certainly didn’t want anyone depending on me. Like many of the lessons learned in childhood, I see now that I may have taken it to extremes, but mostly it’s served me well.

Still I’d thought I was open to some relationship possibilities. So, I had a few boyfriends. As I was looking for nothing long term, it was fairly easy to end the relationship at the first sign of trouble. Why not, it was bound to end sooner or later. Why not put it out of its misery before things got complicated. And I did, again and again. I think it was important for me to feel in control.

It kind of worked for a while. But I pretty much gave up on relationships entirely about twenty years ago when it seemed that all the men I was meeting who were showing an interest in me were married. No thanks. The only thing that interested me less than my own marriage prospects was getting involved in someone else’s marriage. Nope, if that was the only option open to me, I’d just as soon shut the door completely.

And I did for several years. Then I met a man who interested me for the first time in a very long time. I really wanted to get to know him. He’d been married before and made sure I knew he wasn’t interested in doing it again. In my mind, this didn’t present a problem as I certainly wasn’t interested in marriage.  But this could have been one of those “men are from Mars and women are from Venus” communication barriers or perhaps evidence of the differing worldview between a coupler and a loner.  Aren’t all single women just dying to drag the first available man to the Justice of the Peace? It sure seems that men think that way. But I  suspect I was looking for more emotional intimacy than he had to give. And perhaps for couplers, intimacy can only take place within the security of a committed relationship.

I don’t know. I have come to realize that trust and intimacy are key to me. When you don’t have a destination in mind, it truly is all about the journey and whether or not someone wants to walk with us, explore with us, and, as we age, grieve with us.

In the case of this friend, we built up enough trust that I couldn’t push him away. But I discovered when I let go, we drifted apart. That’s okay. I don’t want anyone walking with me who doesn’t want to be there.

I did make an attempt at online dating. Or at least I signed up for Match.Com and looked at it occasionally. I found it horrifying. I was deluged with photos and profiles of men from all over the world. I couldn’t find anything in the photos and profiles that would help me decide which, if any, would prove good traveling companions on my life’s journey.

So, what is one to do but continue the journey on one’s own. I am truly grateful that I’m not stuck in some horrible relationship. I am free to set my own course. And I have friends who will love and support me no matter what ill advised choices I make.  I’m learning to trust them. So, the title of this post and the label of loner are really misnomers. I probably have a more active social life than most of my coupled friends. The only difference is that I arrive at and leave events alone. Given the alternatives, that’s a pretty good way to roll. And I hope to continue rolling toward new adventures when the opportunities arise.

I’ve been struggling with how to approach the topic of relationships. That can be a touchy subject for singles, when coupling is the norm. So, I’m going to use The Lobster as a springboard.

In the movie, singles are sent to a hotel where they have two weeks to find a mate and begin a process whereby they can reenter society. If they fail to do so, they will be turned into the animal of their choice. Yet, despite the obvious benefits of pairing off and being allowed to rejoin society as a human, there are still little educational skits reminding the rejected of the benefits of not being alone, e.g., you’ll have someone to save you from choking to death or being attacked. Well, sign me up!

There are a number of people who prefer to take to the woods and live as loners. They can be hunted by singles in the hotel. Bagging a loner will extend your stay. The equally rigid rules for the loners is where the movie goes off the rails a bit as far as I’m concerned. They’re not permitted any relationships under strict penalties. Totally unnecessary! Everyone knows loners are self policing.

As is often the case with satire and black comedies, there is more than a kernel of truth here. There does seem to be an assumption that you’re somehow incomplete if you’re not paired off. You’re often deemed to have psychological problems, intimacy issues. Or you’re just too choosy. It’s not a huge leap to think perhaps we could be considered more like animals than humans. It may not help that some of us loners actually prefer the company of companion animals to most humans.

I certainly won’t try to argue that I’m free of psychological problems, but I don’t think I’m any more or less messed up than most of my non-single friends. I’ve just chosen to bear my problems myself rather than forcing them on anyone else. I decided to call this site “A Single Mind” because  I think there is a single mindset that should be recognized and acknowledged as a valid lifestyle choice.  It’s not always easy. But the burdens shouldn’t be made greater by society perpetuating the myth of the soulmate or better half or whatever romantic nonsense fuels the entertainment industry and dating sites.

I won’t lie. I’ve dabbled in relationships. I am curious as to what the fuss is all about. But I  could never see myself in any long term relationship. My one regret is that I’ll never have an opportunity for a big celebration like a wedding to gather together friends and family. We really need some kind of a Single Celebration. Yup, it’s just me  but I want to show you I love you all.

“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here to get through this thing called life.”

So, what kind of animal would I choose when my time was up at the hotel?

A dolphin. I’d get swim and play with other dolphins in a pod and take my frustrations out on sharks.

Being single is often regarded as a temporary status, particularly for women. The myth, of course, is that there’s someone for everyone. If you’re not paired off yet, surely, that’s your ultimate goal. Otherwise, you’re doomed to a life of abject loneliness and despair as a spinster, old maid, or CAT LADY.

Huh, huh? I’ve been single all my life. Yes, I have cats and a dog. But I also have friends. I go out more and am more involved in my community than most of my married friends. I have to. If I want social interaction, I have to go out and find it. It doesn’t come to me. But that’s not a bad thing. That means I have control over my interactions. If I want to be alone, I can be. If I choose to be social, I can do that as well. That’s a lot harder to do when you’re sharing all of your space with someone else.

I don’t want to pass judgment on anyone else’s lifestyle choices. But I would like us to take another look at what is presumed to be normal and mature. And, in so doing, perhaps make it easier for those of us who are outside the mainstream to be accepted and loved just the way we are.