Table for One

"How many?"
"One, please."

I take my seat at a table for two. Or maybe the bar, depending on the crowd.
I don't mind it, you know. It comes with the territory of a job where you travel. I see so many beautiful places and lovely people.

Cocktails on the patio at Castle Hill Inn, overlooking the ocean filled with sailboats in no hurry.

An evening soiree for fancy people. All the ladies wear hats, and we all pretend we're important for some reason or another.

Breakfast at a roadside bakery and produce stand. If only I could bottle the aroma that fills the air there.

A late sunset at a country estate in rural Rhode Island eating fresh cherries, and figs wrapped in prosciutto with a squeeze of lime. Dinner at a seaside diner with the breeze seasoning my meal.

Quaint back roads on the Island I take a ferry to reach. The power went out at my bed and breakfast. Nothing brings strangers together like a power outage in a public sleeping house on Nantucket without wifi.

 Solo evening strolls along the docks reading boat names and looking like a mystery woman with red lips and no rush.

A group of fun-chasers invite me aboard for a drink. I decline, but part of me wishes I hadn't. I'm not as bold as I thought. If I was, perhaps I'd be writing about the night I met a fascinating man on a boat in the Nantucket harbor watching the sun sink into the sea. So many possibilities with "what ifs".

Like I said, I don't mind it, the alone-ness, really. This is my life, my adventure. The people who share it with me do so over the phone, mostly. They are my anchor, even though I never stop moving. Thank you, Verizon.

I miss my friends and family when I'm away. And my dogs. Life on the road isn't all glamorous.

I'm happy being me. Sometimes traveling can be lonely. But for me loneliness isn't exactly the empty seat staring across at you, judging you. Its not lacking something. Its just the hope that it won't always be an empty seat, at a table for one.

I don't stay sitting for long, anyway.