Tuk at the top of the World

Found this picture in the Times today.  The Canadian government is building a road from Inuvik to Tuk through this magical area along the ancient caribou paths over the Artic Ocean.

These are reindeer.  And the old sliver moon.

********************

Rob and I watched a movie last night (Man Up).  Funny, delightful, bit of nothing really.  The scenes at the end of a big family and friends party celebrating the couples fortieth anniversary made me sad.

Rob and I talked about it or rather I talked to him and said “I want that, I want friends, I want a group of friends.”

So I’ve started thinking about this.  I have a really close friend and I have family members who are close friends.  So what is it that I want?

In Brooklyn, we had a group of great friends.  I had a couple of really close friends there.  In New York, I had a very close friend.  Looking back on my life, I have had close intense relationships with friends.  But these friendships have tended to be one on one rather than a big group.

So what is it I want?  Do I just want a big boisterous group of people so I can say I have a big boisterous group of people?  Is this another bucket list item?  Is this the result of watching Friends?

I told Rob that what happened to us here on this Island changed me.  I withdrew from people and they withdrew from me.  Not the important people; the friends you have parties with and laugh with and carry on.

But maybe I have always been this way.  I can be as lonely in a group of friends as I would be if I were all alone.  Loneliness is something that we all live with and I have been aware of this oneness since I was a little girl.

So as I have gotten older, I became more truly myself, hardening off into something more basic and truer to who I am. Or the world moved on and I can’t, won’t, don’t want to catch up.  I learned to live within myself. I like my nest in the tree.

Or maybe I just became an asshole.

I want to make new friends but it is as if I don’t know how anymore.  I want my life back before it hit the fan.  But I was the same me before the shit went down.  (What a great title for a book “Before the Shit Went Down”).

I love my writing time, my solitude.

I have become used to being alone.

Or maybe I been down so long it looks like up to me.  Speaking of up, the picture at the top is about as up as you can get.