Final Place Entry: Thursday, July 28th and August 8th. The Ravine Trail and Confronting Solitude.

People here still ask me why I chose Pittsburgh. They probably always will. My answer will always be distance. How well can somebody write about a place that they’ve never seen from the outside? I write about my home now with passion, but that wasn’t always the case. I couldn’t wait to leave it after college. I’ve never forgotten how close I was to never coming back.

Today, I’m at my mother’s house, sitting outside on her deck. The weather is cool, in the low sixties, and a wind is lifting the smell of saltwater through the hemlock and strawberry trees to where I am. Right now, there is where I want to be. I want to be here with my dogs, my coffee, and even the crane flies. But I know the novelty will where off, I will grow restless, and crave Pittsburgh again, even though I was so happy to leave it behind the remainder of the summer. The Northwest is a funny place. It’s a great place to be from and it’s great place to end up. As for all that life between, Pittsburgh has served me far better.

On the Ravine Trail, I think of it as a city, a work in progress, a place reinventing itself. It’s me. I’ve become rather fond of it, even at times become defensive. Pittsburgh is like my sister. I can insult her, but no one else can. Soon, I’ll be leaving it on the Empire Builder.

There is little wildlife to be seen today in Frick Park, all of them certainly aware before I was of the coming storm and rainfall. It’s darker than it should be at this hour.

In this blog, I’ve portrayed this place as a poor substitute for my home, but that’s really no longer correct. Becoming somewhat frayed by living in a city, it’s honestly become a bit of a refuge.

I need distance from my home to write about it, but I need reminders, too. In everywhere else I’ve lived, I’ve neglected that, even avoided parks, and tried to go hard without. In Pittsburgh, I wasn’t doing so well with urban living and needed that hike, with that person in April. I can’t remember a time in all my travels where I just went into the woods and thought about my life. Not until now.

Standing here in the Ravine Trail, I again think about my life and all its comforts and distractions. I’m afraid of nature because of the silence and the deeper thoughts and reflections that usually go in hand with it. Maybe that’s why as much as I miss Washington, I’m always ready to leave it with difficulties such as someone I don’t want contacting me on my birthday, one less dog, a dinner table missing someone, suddenly all coming to the forefront, all now unavoidable.

I hear birds now, the static of cicadas high in the oaks. The clouds are getting darker, but the thunder and lightning has yet to begin. Their air is again stagnant, near tropical, although a cool breeze moves through the woods. I can feel the soft dirt through my shoes. Everything is okay. The trail is empty today. The solution to avoiding your own thoughts is to keep moving. But that’s not a sustainable or happy life, is it? Graduate school has decisively put me in place for two years. This class has had me coming here every other week to confront solitude.

One result: On the Empire Builder, I fall asleep at random intervals. Cat naps. My laptop is closed and my headphones are off. The first time I was on this train, it was an adventure. I didn’t want to miss a single unfamiliar landscape or any town. But now I know the route. I’m left with only my thoughts. I’m okay with that.

Another: I first became intimate with nature in the Inland Northwest, but Frick Park, of all places, appears to be my reacquaintance. The morning we arrive in Spokane, I notice maple trees. I realize that I learned how to identify maples from the Ravine Trail.