As I begin my trip south, I leave behind my winter skin, responsibilities, family, and the vestiges of my Oregon community. There is history in my life there. My children were born there. I was married there. I had my career and retired there. Deep friendships were forged there. Memories and losses, all woven into the fabric of my life.

And yet, in my restlessness, I leave them behind with nomadic yearning. I am heading to my other home in Tucson, AZ, having convinced my new friend Jeannie to accompany me and my feline on another camping adventure. She, driving my Nissan and I, driving the trusty Nomad Moon, we caravan towards sunnier climes. I continue my solitude, punctuated by conversations with my cat Dobby, and rest stop breaks with Jeannie. She will visit for 3 days before returning home. I will spend another winter in a place where I can really only count a couple of people as friends.

Lying here sleepless in the van, I hear a symphony of coyotes. Dobby is intently monitoring the situation from the driver’s seat. He challenged my existential loneliness with a major scare this morning. As we prepared to leave the place we were staying in Ashland, OR, Dobby escaped the van just before dawn. We stalked the neighborhood in the dark, searching for my fugitive feline, to no avail. I was bereft, and went to that bleak place of remembering all the losses and heartbreaks this year brought. Now I had lost my animal companion as well. After a couple of hours search, I sat in the van to meditate, resigning myself to continue my journey, catless. After I accepted my new reality, I opened my eyes, and there in front of me sat Dobby, dragging his dirty leash behind him. He apparently had second thoughts about a life of abject loneliness…

And as I resume the trip I am reminded that one’s life is like a train ride, where travelers get on at different stations and accompany you for a few stops. You share life stories and are sad when they depart. But then new passengers board the train. The loneliness dissipates, making the trip more bearable again. Maybe we should just be grateful for fellow travelers, both human and animal, however long we share the voyage.