Letter: “I Was There With You On The Mountain”

There is no reception in the mountains.

If you go there, for the most part, you are alone. That’s why you go. To be alone.

Near the start of the trail, there are couples strolling, families sauntering, and tables on which the contents of picnic baskets are spreading.

And there is the occasional solo hiker – like me – wandering.

Wandering, solo, in my case, because I was no longer a couple.

The deeper into the forest you go, the steeper the climb becomes, the more alone you are.

Crowds will be left far behind. Cares too for the most part.

But not tears. Not if you’re me.

No, not tears.

Best of course to leave word with someone where you intend to go. That way someone will know basically where you are if you get lost.

And I was lost.

I was lost not because I couldn’t find the trail.

There were times when I just couldn’t see it.

We loved the mountains. We dated there. So, I suppose it was not surprising that now that she had gone, to the mountains I returned.

Like daisies attract bees, like woodpeckers attack trees, I was irresistibly drawn to, and became one with, the forest where I disappeared, a hundred miles backpacking this summer, mile after mile after exhausting mile spent searching, but for what I did not know.

Unbeknownst to me someone was tracking me on my journey.

Though there is no reception in the mountains, they knew.

They knew when I was exhausted and when I sat and debated whether I could go on.

They saw me pitch my tent, drive the stakes, wearily crawl atop the air mattress ere I drift off to sleep on the tent floor.

They saw me, saw the tiredness in my eyes; wondered at the endurance; perhaps cried for me; rooted for me as I neared the end.

I must have felt it.

That someone knew of me, and cared about me, even cried for me, though I was alone, they enabled me.

There is no reception in the mountains.

Then again, there is.

It’s called love.