Courtesy ofKatie Arnold/OutsideOnline.com
This article originally appeared in the December 2015 issue of SELF.
I found itwell, herwalking toward me on a trail.
She would become my hiking partner.
I already knew about Natalie, of course.
And I knew she led workshops for both accomplished and aspiring writers.
Yes.But it was the inspiration I needed to attend her upcoming writing retreat.
There, a friendship blossomed and we hatched a plan to hike together.
And so began our weekly ritual.
We climb in silence, saving our words for the descent.
The trail winds through a narrow canyon, past juniper trees, and thick-skinned pines.
Then I descend and find Natalie sitting cross-legged beneath a tree, and we talk the whole way down.
These are our rules, and we rarely deviate.
That first fall, I learned my father had terminal cancer.
I was nearly out of my mind with shock and fear.
So Natalie and I talked about dying.
The only dishes I knew how to make were salad and soft-boiled eggs.
On the way down, Natalie gave me explicit instructions for roasting a chicken and making omelets.
I imagined having every fatal condition: brain tumor, cancer, heart disease.
When I hiked with Natalie, I was free.
Natalie has a saying that her Zen teacher told her: Continue under all circumstances.
But even gurus need to take their own advice.
Some winter mornings she’d email me: “It’s 20 degrees.
Should we go?”
Soon we’d been hiking for a year and a half.
Natalie wrote one book, then another.
I sold my first one.
Last year she had her own cancer scare, and I broke my knee running.
“Don’t fight time,” Natalie told me gently one day.
“You are moving at the right pace.”
Gradually we were building back up, together.
Now it’s been five years.
We talk about writing and meditating, mothering and painting, making miso soup, and swimming in lakes.
We talk about Japan, South Dakota, the hills of Wyoming, our home hills.
When we walk together, time slows and the ordinary becomes extraordinaryas simple yet profound as breathing.
