Never Alone: Insight from 3 Chance Encounters in the Woods
Traveling Alone, Encountering Community
Encounter 1: The Rogue Canadian Trail
I was alone, driving to some predetermined destination in Canada, when I discovered a hand-painted sign promising a trail on the side of the road. Nothing about my adventure was timed, so I decided to pull off, pack up, and hit the rogue trail.
Because when in Canada, why not?
The going was unmemorable; it’s likely I spent most of the way dreaming of storylines. At the top, however, there was a jaw-dropping view of the expansive city below. (Which city is a mystery to me now.) An impressive motor bridge spanned the vista. I regarded it from my perch on a rock, content to watch the tiny moving cars with the same fascination as penguins and sea lions at the zoo.
My trance shattered when a babbling group of humans meandered onto the scene. I was the only other one present, and they wanted a picture.
In my classically evasive manner, I considered acting as if French was my first language. But the moment was quicker than my brain could conjure the word quoi, so I snapped their picture and hastily began my descent to the trailhead.
From “Alone” to Traffic Cone
It’s interesting to be suspended between the desire to connect and a distaste for normative social rituals. The group’s photograph had been a relatively regular request. Had I tried, I could have engaged in conversation beyond “Sorry to bother you” and “It’s okay.”
But I hadn’t, because swapping where-are-you-froms and what-do-you-dos just doesn’t resonate with me. Very often, seeing this dichotomy leaves me feeling utterly alone—and this day was no different.
On my way back down to the car, a group of fellows passed by. They were markedly happy, all smiles and laughs with one another. It was infectious: their joy became my joy, and already I started to elevate out of feeling quite so alone. We exchanged a quick greeting and shimmied our separate ways on the trail.
A minute later, one of them called out to me. “Hey,” he said. “Look up. Did you see that?”
Honestly, I hadn’t. Up in the heights of the trees, there was a lone traffic cone. Its posture was so perfect that it had obviously been put there by clever hands. Now it was a brilliant orange beacon for all the forest creatures, including us five hikers.
We all laughed and laughed. In that moment, their “company” was what it took to feel at home in the world.
Finding Comfort in “Strangers”
Encounter 2: Alone in Colorado
This wasn’t the first time a group of strangers intuitively warmed my heart with their hands.
In March 2018, I flew out to Estes Park, Colorado, for my first solo adventure in this life. It was a feat to even get there, considering my history of aerophobia and debilitating attachment to anxiety.
My mother was baffled when I told her I was going. “You?” she had asked. “You realize you’ll have to get on a plane to do that, right?”
I did, and though I had to white-knuckle every takeoff and landing, this trip to Colorado became one of my life’s milestones—a set of experiences I consider integral for setting the field for my spiritual growth.
Before I ever realized the trip’s impacts, however, it had to test me… and test me it did.
Testing My Luck
One of my first hikes in Rocky Mountain National Park was characterized by snow. It was springtime, so in my inexperienced pre-trip, raised-in-the-Midwest mind, I hadn’t factored in the possibility of snowpack.
Nor did I really understand its hazards. It only took one full leg-plunge into the snow to realize I was in over my head. (And my boots… and my leggings.)
That didn’t stop me, though. After stomping several leg-sized holes into the ground, I finally found the trail I’d wanted to try, so I sallied forth.
Everything was okay—okay enough, at least—until I lost the trail. Then I was really on my own.
And, being the gold-starred go-getter I was raised to be, I decided to forge my own way up the mountain.
Alone on a Treachurous Tributary
The tributary I found to climb was imposing, to say the least. It was steep, towering, and treacherous. To this day, it catches my breath when I look at the photograph I took of it.
Not to mention that just beneath the frozen surface, there was a constant rush of water.
Naive is the word that comes to mind. I was wholeheartedly naive.
Climbing the tributary was exhausting work. I didn’t have trekking poles or cleats, and inexperience was not on my side. By the time I reached the alpine lake at the top, I was “halfway to death,” as my Facebook post describes.
I could barely comprehend the majesty of the snow-veined mountains surrounding the lake. It stirred within me a profound sense of awe, but also the sickness of anxiety. Some part of me understood that the tributary could have taken my life very easily. I was starting to see how ill-prepared I’d been for any stretch of this trip.
And God, did I feel alone.
My Motherly Stand-Ins
Thankfully, I roamed around the lake for a little bit as my pulse slowed down. For after those few important moments, I came upon a group of women who were astonished to learn I was alone.
“Your mother must be worried sick,” one of them remarked.
“She is,” I said. So am I.
These women were middle-aged, and they were either mothers themselves, or simply loving enough to embody motherliness. They shared their snacks with me, and together we marveled at the beauty that had collected us together on that very set of rock.
When it was time for them to go, the women invited me to join them. I was too ashamed to admit I’d gotten dangerously lost before, but the truth may have revealed itself in how eager I was to accept their invitation.
All the way back down the mountain, I was in good company—and never once did we lose sight of the trail. My companions taught me more about the basics of hiking than I’d ever thought to research. We chuckled at each other’s stories and sighed as we basked in the sun.
Our journeys branched at the parking lot, of course. But at that point, I was humbled and grateful that in this vast universe, I was not alone.
Insights from Being “Alone”
Life Patterns, Heavy Beliefs
This experience of aloneness has been a prominent theme throughout my life. Whether at school, home, church, or otherwise, I have been plagued by feelings of alienhood and unworthiness.
Over time those feelings morphed into beliefs—heavy, hard-shelled beliefs which I’ve carried to this day.
Now here we are. Being without much for a community and seeing my chronic pattern of misalignment with the world, I’ve recently been snared back into the lie of isolation. Every time a new trouble presents itself, therefore, I feel insufficiently equipped to embrace it.
But what I realized today, with another chance encounter in the woods, is that I’ve never really been alone. Never at all.
Perfect Placement in this World
The woods were alive as I was. Mushrooms, ferns, mosses, and trees were breathing all around me. The winds were the breath of the earth, and the rains were its gentle release.
Nothing was out of place there. Not even me.
My footsteps were a part of each cascading moment, my arm-swings little reflections of the tree branches swaying in time. Annette was not anyone or anything other than what they were. Just as the mushrooms were mushrooming, Annette was Annette-ing, and every being was in its exact place. There was no need for you or me or I.
There was nothing to be threatened, for even if I’d fallen down—even if I’d died—the universe would have flowed in to take care of it, just as the Colorado women had fostered me, and just as the traffic-cone guys had brought me light.
Encounter 3: Kevin’s Fruits Among the Trees
As if to wrap this whole scene with a loving, existential bow, I came upon another loving embrace at the top of the trail. The difference with this encounter, however, was that there wasn’t anybody else there.
All I found was a collection of fruits, and this message marked onto a leaf:
Enjoy! From my trees.
— Kevin / Burien
In the not-too-distant past, this being named Kevin had left behind a bounty from his garden. I could almost see him fishing through his backpack for a Sharpie, then smiling upon the gift as he headed back for the trees.
The gesture, though conventionally simple, left love lingering in the space.
My melancholy dissolved. Kevin was not there at that moment, but his intention was resonant all around. In just that way I knew we were together, unbound by time or space or social convention, and I saw through the fallacy of “alone.”
Moving Into the Truth of Not-Alone
This lesson in perceived aloneness has been decades in the making. Many times and many people have passed through, gently whispering that which I couldn’t (or wouldn’t) yet fully see.
It doesn’t matter if someone is physically in our presence. There is joy, beauty, love, and understanding everywhere, all the time—we merely forget how to access it. The key is in the present moment, and in the openness of our hearts.
If we remain closed-off to the help the universe continually offers, it’s like trapping ourselves inside. It still surrounds us with its love, but it may take years for us to wake up and see its light.
Is this a perfect understanding? That, I doubt. But maybe the next time I’m tempted to feel alone, I’ll be quicker to think of the Canadian traffic cone, the Colorado women, or the fruit Kevin offered to strangers for free.
Maybe I’ll think of you, fellow life-traveler, instead of being so fixated on “me.”
✩₊˚.⋆☾ 𖤓 ⋆⁺₊✧