lone man.
Copyright 2008 – Cole Thompson
I have long admired the work of Cole Thompson, a local artist/photographer. Recently, I have been in touch with Cole, and we chatted briefly. In any case, he added me to his email newsletter; of which the latest contained the following beautifully written short:
Silently, a young man on a bicycle joined me. We stood there together, no words necessary, comfortable in our silence. Eventually we spoke and I met a unique individual.
He came with only two spare inner tubes.
He was riding his bicycle from the Arctic Circle to Guatemala, he expected the ride to last 7 months. He had the clothes on his back and two saddle bags on his bicycle.
He stopped every few days to recharge.
He is a therapist who works with troubled youth. He teaches them about responsibility and consequences by taking them camping in the wilderness where, if something goes wrong, there is no one to blame but yourself.
He is from Michigan.
He prefers not to tell his kids what they shouldn’t do in their lives, but would rather show them what they can do, by example.
He drank my Pepsi.
He felt that video games and television are bad influences on kids, that it causes them to miss out on life experiences.
He is engaged to a therapist back in Michigan.
We talked about how people rarely experience silence, with only their thoughts to be heard. And when they do, they are uncomfortable with it and inundate themselves with the noise of television, iPods, video games and movies.
We ate cherry flavored cranberries.
We discussed how people spend very little time alone, meditating, praying, thinking, pondering or whatever you’d like to call it.
We stared at the ocean.
I don’t know his name, but at that moment, he too was the Lone Man.
Cole
I found the story very humbling and powerful. It is true that we don’t spend enough time alone, regenerating, unwinding, staring towards the distant horizon just pondering life. I am on a path to get back to this sense of self through my own photography. Being on the side of a quiet dirt road, tripod set up, with the sky dimming… I don’t always realize it at the time, but I look back at those moments with fondness; wishing to be out there more often.
The Lone Man series is an ongoing project for Cole. You can view Lone Man here.
I can’t help but think Marcel would really appreciate the Lone Man series.
You are right. I think Marcel is the Lone Man, in many ways; many good ways in fact. Always traveling, always on the self-reflective path to something greater. Unfortunately, I don’t think he reads this regularly.