One of my sister lives about 30 minutes drive in that direction. During 2020 it might as well have been 1000 miles. No chance of seeing her.

Where we live always feels like it’s so cut off from the world. Sometimes it’s so easy to forget that a city is not that far a drive away. It’s one of those rare cities that hasn’t allowed any high rise buildings. It hides easily away on the horizon.

That feeling of being cut off is helped by lack of kinks we have with the outside world. If you don’t want to use the car then it’s two small buses a day. Nothing on a Sunday. The village doesn’t have a pub, or cafe, or school, or shop. Not quite tumbleweed levels but definitely quiet and often feeling most definitely cut off. During a pandemic even the occasional rambler has become a real rarity. The only evidence that an outside world still exists is the fairly regular stream of passing cyclists. The challenge of climbing the steep hill to the village is attractive to those on two wheels. A climb I’ve not undertaken since a few weeks before the world changed for me in 2016.

A lots happened in those years. Thoughts of needing a sportier frame have morphed into ‘that ornament gathering dust is taking up too much space in the increasingly cramped garage’.

But things will change eventually. We won’t seem so cut off again. The bike will again become a means of transport. Trips to the city and my sister will recommence. Life will become connected again. Even for those living in the wilderness……

42 thoughts on “Wilderness”

  2. I too live in the wilderness, with the next nearest town being over 100 kilometres away. The closest city, any city, is 490 kms away. The nearest supercity, one with over 1,000,000 population, is 780 kms away. That is wilderness in Canada.
    I used to bike everywhere as a kid and even into my 30s. I never owned a car till I was 35. My body was in fine shape then. Now I can barely sit on a stationery bike without losing my balance. Illness and chronic medical issues have leached away my healthy body, although all the troubles are hidden inside. I look like I am healthy, and people do not understand why I have a Handicapped sticker hanging from the mirror rack on my windshield. I’ve had people call the cops on me for walking out of my handicapped parking spot. One doesn’t need to be in a wheelchair to need a parking spot close to a business entrance. Maybe someday they will find out, but for now they hate me without knowing me. That too is a wilderness.
    But life goes on.
    My nearest sister, or brother, lives 1600 kms away. I live her, but I like it that way.
    Why am I telling you all this? I have no idea. The idea of wilderness with a city only 30 kms away struck me as odd, but I understand. There are many ways to be in a wilderness. You have found one of them.

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  7. Perhaps when the world opens back up we may appreciate a lot of things more and that wouldn’t be a bad thing. I isolated myself in 2018, voluntarily, and it saved my sanity, so not much will change for me, but I am keenly aware of how most other people are suffering and will be very relieved when it ends. How do you feel about getting “the vaccine?”

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  9. I like your wilderness… that sky is stunning!
    Distance in miles or kilometers, or distance in hours or days don’t really matter if there’s a distance in emotion or communication.

    What I mean is, you may be physically distanced from others now, but you’re not cut off. Your sister would come to you in emergency. You have many people in the blogosphere who care about you and Hawklad and would offer whatever assistance they can.

    As I wrote at the start… I kinda like your wilderness… that view is breathtaking!
    💌💌💌

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  11. Sometimes I wish I lived a little more in the wilderness when I hear nothing but traffic all day long with several bus lines going past my apartment along with fire trucks, ambulances and police cars as well as transport trucks roaring by at all hours. I do long for silence sometimes. I have to go to the park to find that, and that is not always convenient. So I must learn to live with the noise. Oh, well.

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