´óÏó´«Ã½

A couple of weeks ago I went for a walk. And then, last Friday, I took a long ride on a bus. These were wildly divergent experiences. The walk was on Dartmoor, and was as bleak and magical and terrifying as a walk in South West England can be. Starting in the north of the moor, I walked alone in a long loop, across the highest ground, over muscle-sapping bogs and rock, sometimes through dense mist and rain, navigating by compass and then under vast skies towards expansive horizons. I camped under a rock called Wild Tor and spent a wakeful, lonely night battered by an apocalyptic storm, fearing my faithful tent might give up the ghost and surrender to the wind and the rain.  But it didn’t, and the next morning, I came off the moor through more wind, more rain and more sunshine, every so often blessed by rainbows as the weather conspired to show me everything it had to offer. And I was happy.

The bus, on the other hand, was on the M40 and was as bleak and joyless as a journey can be. For the first time since March of last year it was absolutely packed and so, for the first time since March of last year, someone sat next to me. And I was not happy. And to my shame, I made my unhappiness amply known to that poor, benighted individual who had, therefore, to contend not only with the big bag on his lap but also a grumpy and frankly rude neighbour. Now, I can’t honestly say that on Dartmoor I was trying to emulate Jesus’ habit of taking himself alone into the hills to pray. I must honestly confess, though, that I am nowhere close to his capacity to exist comfortably in a crowd.

In recent times I’ve lost both the desire and the willingness to share my space, which are basic requirements of community life. I suspect I’m not the only one. I reckon, then, that what I probably need is to learn again from scratch the essential skills of co-existence not only with my friends, but with all the unknown unfortunates who will have to share space with me. And then perhaps, I can be as happy in those everyday, unexpected encounters as I was the day I walked up and out into the wilderness.