Sorry to Interrupt Your Solitude

A personal essay about what experiencing solitude under the winter night sky means, and how it feels being the one that interrupts another’s solitude.

One late winter night, I ventured down a northern Minnesota road typically snowed in but just covered with a dusting of snow. I stopped at a creek that curved towards the north and the northern arm of the Milky Way. The night was one of those nights where the cold of late winter clears the sky, and the stars look so sharp that they feel like you could reach out and touch them.

The night descended upon the creek, and because it was so cold it built frost upon the creek’s ice, and the grasses in the wetlands surrounding the creek were dusted with snow that was coated with frost. Under the light of the stars, the frost sparkled. If you stared long enough, you could see the frost change color like the dog star Sirius flickering behind me.

It was the dead of night and night surrounded me.

When there are no streetlights, night feels like wearing onyx. It’s darker still when there’s limited light pollution and you’re in the countryside away from any small villages. There night looks like a piece of obsidian reflecting the flickers of a fire. It can be so dark that you can see, with your bare eyes, Andromeda, a neighboring galaxy.

To see our neighbor, you don’t need a telescope or binoculars. It’s there as a smudge in the sky. Visible. Hanging among the stars, next to the northern arm of the Milky Way which towers over your head. And so many stars that the brightest constellations – the only stars visible from a downtown big city such as St. Paul – disappear and fade away. Night there is so thick that it makes you feel solitude even when not alone.

But I was alone, and I left the warmth of my car, walked to a point where I could best set up a camera to capture the curve of the creek under the stars. I almost shivered as I placed the camera onto my tripod. It was obsidian dark, and I caught a view of Andromeda from the corner of my eye until I lost it.

Alone in the obsidian and onyx, the peacefulness of solitude descended from the sky. My thoughts disappeared. Just me and the new frost. Just me and the cold. Just me and our neighboring galaxy. Just the stars. I started to feel small under that vast winter sky. But not lonely. Never lonely. There were too many stars to accompany me on my journey. Just here. Just now. Just the night. Just the obsidian and the onyx and the flickering fire light of the stars warming the cold night.

With my camera on the tripod, I pulled out a flashlight to light up the view in front of me to make it easier to compose my photo. The light cast itself across the distant spruce and fir tree line, that backed the wetlands about 50 yards away, and caught two eyes for a second.

The hair on the back of my neck stood up as the wolf howled into the night. That howl echoed across the wetland, into the trees behind me. I glanced upward behind me in reaction to being surrounded and saw Sirius in the sky flickering at me to run. It was time for the chase, and I was the rabbit. My solitude broken.

The thing about solitude is that you are alone – maybe not as alone as I was under that night sky with a wolf just 50 yards away but alone. It’s the type of alone that is welcomed, and people apologize when they interrupt your solitude. It’s a time to reflect and to let everything go. It’s a quiet time that you set aside to recharge. There are other types of aloneness that contrast with solitude, such as isolation and seclusion. In the former, you feel separated from your peers, your friends, and your family, and you feel separated not by choice. It’s a banishment of sorts. When secluded, you shut off others and withdrawal physically from their presence. It is your choice.

Solitude doesn’t require being isolated or secluded. You can experience solitude while gathering with others. It can fall upon you suddenly or slowly. It can be like an increasing temperature that you fail to notice. One minute you are together with friends, and ten minutes later you realize that they are talking but you’ve been staring into a campfire full of stars. There have been times when I didn’t realize I was in solitude until interrupted.

And then there is the solitude of night.

Even when under all those stars and our neighboring sentient beings – there must be other beings – even when we are isolated from them, and even though we will never know them, we can join them in feeling quiet solitude. We can imagine that they are reflecting upon the night, the stars, the distance, and how truly small we are when compared to it all.

In joint solitude under the stars.

Just the stars. Just a howling wolf frosting the grasses, cracking the ice, echoing around off the trees behind and off the descending cold of a late winter night.

When alone at night, a wolf feels terrifying. And I was terrified. The wolf’s howl entered my ears, ran up and down my spine and interrupted my solitude. I returned to my thoughts and my thoughts said, run.

Leaving the camera behind, I dashed across the frost-covered wetland grasses, brushing the frost which dropped into the dark shadows covering the ground. I got to my car, now cold, and jumped in. My eyes glanced through the windows from side to side. To the tree line. Waiting to see eyes and a pack of wolves.

But nothing.

Nothing.

I was alone again.

I cautiously walked back to my camera. Each step crunched in the grass and each step broke the silence and my solitude. I didn’t feel like staying at this spot, and I packed up my gear and then returned to the car.

With a last glance at the tree line and up to the sky and to the flickering dog star, I wondered where the wolf had gone. Just before I got into the car I whispered to the wolf, “I’m sorry to have interrupted your solitude.”

Until next time

I hope you enjoyed this essay. A little bit of housekeeping for those who have been waiting for my announcement. I’m working on my 2027 photography workshop schedule, and I plan to open registration on April 7th for alumni and April 11th for general registration. I didn’t have a Milky Way pano workshop on the calendar, but I’ve had a few people ask about that. If there’s enough interest, I’ll add it. Let me know if you were hoping that I would offer that again.

And now for the parting shot.