One Morning in May

An Encounter by Stephen Drew

On a perfect late May morning I left home for my daily walk. The air was crisp and just beginning to warm, the sky was cloudless, the shadows still casting a bit long. I considered my route, deciding to head north on the shoulder of the state road, then turn off a half mile ahead onto the shore road that would bring me alongside the lake for a while before heading into the woods. Plan in place, I went about settling the mind for some walking contemplation.

A few minutes passed and a feeling of wellbeing came upon me as thoughts fell into the rhythm of the walk and my stride began to open. I’ve always found that when things align this way, I’m able to notice ̶ ̶ notice that which is around, and that which is within. These are the things that may prove to be unforgettable. And on some fine days, in brief glimpses, I can see all things fall into one thing.

During many of my walks around this particular time, I’d been preoccupied with my heavy heart in a season of aloneness after a recent parting. It had become my habit to face this feeling and follow it to its roots, to see what was really there. This had been occurring mostly in an atmosphere of surrender, which is what happens when there are no other options. Those familiar with my past in relationships might also suggest that it was about damn time.

As I continued to walk, I felt like something was about to shift, something in the air one might say. But whatever it was, it had cued my attention and suggested a time for noticing was at hand. It was shortly after this, when, from behind, I heard two light steps and one soft yet noticeable breath. A bit startled now from my reverie, I turned to look over my right shoulder. The perception of time slowed; the images appeared almost like still frames. The noticing was afoot. There was a woman jogging. She was at least ten years younger than me, had a light mocha complexion, a roman nose, and a wry smile that created a kind of crinkle at the outer edge of her left eye. I returned her smile and placed a hand over my heart to acknowledge being startled. She breathily apologized, and it was then I could sense her consideration, her kindness and warmth. It was as if she had been revealed most truly, and yet all of it in a singular, fleeting, breezy moment. How is this? Time resumed as before. As she finished passing me, I told her not to worry ̶ ̶ that it was only because she was so light on her feet that she’d taken me by surprise. Looking back over her shoulder, she just laughed a little and continued running off.

The odds were against my ever seeing her again. Probably a visitor at the lake, I thought. I know most of the full-time folks around here at least by sight. Given the way things went, though, I had to wonder if she was some kind of an angel. Who can say? I know only this: I felt uplifted, and it lasted. It may not have been a healing, but it was a respite from the aloneness I’d been feeling, and it left no doubt that it was gifted to me.  

Assuming she is in fact a mortal being and not an apparition, I’m sure she’d be quite surprised to know any of this. Therein lies the perfection of it, for I believe there are times when we are used by the all of it to bless a part of it, a part that may be, in some way large or small, suffering. We can never know. It would ruin everything if we did. We can only see to the jogging. The rest lies beyond our immediate apprehension.  

I continued along the shore road and across the northern edge of the lake. For as long as I’ve been walking here, the lake has always captured my attention no matter what the season. On this day, it was the soothing calm blue of its water reflecting the azure sky, but it could just as well have been a wind-driven, choppy, steel-gray surface on a raw late afternoon in November. During a winter’s late morning it might be the snow-dusted sheen of flat, smooth ice that moans and snaps in the warming air, echoing against the low-slung shoreline hills. This lake and I have developed a relationship over time. It has become my companion and my muse, as much a part of me as my skin.

My thoughts drifted back to my jogging friend. I began to ponder the significance of our meeting. It was the uplift I couldn’t quite reason, and the sense that it had been bestowed on me, an anointing. How could such a fleeting encounter have had such a noticeable effect? Maybe it was just the aloneness that had triggered this kind of thinking. I laughed to myself ̶ ̶ probably making too much of a random thing, I figured. I sometimes do this. But then, how dare I ever dismiss the noticing.

The road bent away from the lake not far beyond me, disappearing into the woods. I once again saw the jogger, now rounding the curve on the other side of the road and heading my way. As she drew closer, I assumed we’d just wave as we passed, but she pulled up and stopped, smiled, and stood looking toward me with her hands on her hips.

I crossed the road.

We spoke for about ten minutes, she with an urgency that suggested the opportunity to do so didn’t come often. She was new to the area, having only recently purchased a home just down the road from where I live. We shared a bit about our mutual love of the lake and its surroundings, and what a refuge it was for each of us from where we’d been before. She told me of her mother who lived back in her hometown in northern California and was close to the end of her life, that it would soon be time to return to her. Seamlessly, she shifted to telling me about her husband (“the love of my life”) who’d passed ten years before in his 40s from a rapidly developing form of brain cancer. Looking out over the lake, she talked about the two now-grown children they shared, and the quiet devastation of their collective loss. As I listened, I realized that once again, my hand was over my heart.

She interrupted herself, shook her head, smiled a little, and said, “Why did I just tell you all that?”

I shrugged. “Maybe because you needed to.”

We exchanged emails and continued on our way.

What is it that places any two people together in such a way? Is it just some random exercise in probability, or something more specific? I’ve been having these kinds of encounters for a lifetime, now, and I’m no closer to having an answer. What I have found is that if I can respond to another with compassion, then it could be said I’m feeling as the other, and it would then follow that the space between us collapses toward a place where there is not two. It may well be that life is in a nearly constant state of providing such opportunities. The magic trick for us would be to notice them and realize that a gift has been bestowed.

The old adage about being kind to all we meet applies. To rise each day with the intention to be in some way available to others does not necessarily imply extraordinary effort on our part. It could just be as easy as an errand to the post office or grocery store, a spontaneous stop for an ice cream cone, a jog or walk on some lovely morning. A glance, a smile, a kind word or gesture, maybe just listening, could save a life, or at least uplift one. Never can tell.

A couple of weeks after that lakeside meeting, I received an email; the subject line was simply “Hello.” She wanted to tell me that two hours after returning home that day, she received a call that her mother was “ready now.” She made it in time to be with her.

Stephen Drew lives in a bucolic lakeside community in northwestern Connecticut. In addition to Around the Forever Bend, he also authored the memoir Into the Thin: A Pilgrimage Walk Across Northern Spain which was his first published work. Stephen practices a minimalist lifestyle which includes daily walking, mostly on the roads and paths near his home. Hiking there and elsewhere serves as a centerpiece of contemplative living and an ongoing connection to Source. He currently resides in Morris, Connecticut. Visit him at authorstephendrew.com.