Lonely as a Cloud
An Apostle Islands postcard
It seems a bit early in the morning to be a contrarian, but I have just never bought into the central premise of that famous line in William Wordsworth’s romantic 1807 poem, “I wandered lonely as a cloud / That floats on high o’er vales and hills.”
Forget for a moment the anthropomorphism inherent in thinking that clouds can feel anything. Why, even if it could experience emotions, would a cloud be lonely floating “high o’re vales and hills” or even out over Oak Island this morning?
One of the most common questions I get when I speak about my trips alone into the Islands aboard the Little Dipper is “Do you ever get lonely?” Sure, there are moments when something so beautiful unfolds that I ache to share it with friends or family and I wish I could turn to someone I love and see the look on their face as the world peels back the blinds and let’s us peer into the true heart of it all. But there is nothing inherently evil in solitude. Enjoying time alone is not a sickness. In the proper measure, time alone can be fulfilling, restful, even help us draw clearer boundaries around the terrain of the self, defining who we are in this world. Wandering alone can be a contented feeling, even happy, not just a “lonely” one. Even Wordsworth himself later in the poem admits “the bliss of solitude.”
Maybe that cloud is blissing out, figuring out who it is, how it fits in to the shape of the sky around it. Maybe it just needs some time away from the crowded cloudbanks of a summer day.
As the cloud drifts out over the tip of Oak Island and beyond, I fire up the Little Dipper and begin at first to follow along in its “wandering” — a small cloud and a small boat together in the sky blue waters of this large lake. But then, I don’t. I turn away, granting the cloud its solitude and head off in my own direction to wander as happy, or contented, or just about anything other than “lonely” as a cloud” for the rest of this quiet morning.
— Jeff Rennicke (all photography by the author unless otherwise noted).
This:
Maybe it just needs some time away from the crowded cloudbanks of a summer day.”
A time where no one has expectations of us. Nothing is due or owed. Nothing needs to be accomplished nor do we need to be productive.
Peace
Well done in both kinds of your art.