This Is What A Good Single Serving Friend Looks Like

The past few weeks I’ve been thinking a lot about nature, mountains, camping.

I have an upcoming road trip from Michigan to Florida, and I’ve been pondering if I might take a detour to spend a night or two on near one of my favorite places, the Appalachian Trail.

Last week

Robin Taylor (he/him)

posted an article chronicling the journey he had backpacking with his son, rich with photos and detailed descriptions. I swooned with jealously at the beauty of the landscape and the experience; it made me want to camp even more.

Finally, social media reminded me that this week was the anniversary of the only solo backpacking adventure I’ve ever had, back in 2018.

One of the post photos had been shared by a fellow traveler, R., that I’d met along the way on the trail. He’d tagged me so it had also popped up on my timeline.

When I first met him he was sitting alongside the trail taking a rest. I was stopping to refill my water bladder and bottles in a nearby creek. We chatted and realized that we were both targeting the same campsite for the night, Bly’s Gap.

He said he was tired and planning to rest awhile before heading out though, and I was eager to keep going while I still had the energy so we bid farewell with hopeful plans to see one another that night to break up some of the aloneness on the trail.

Bly’s Gap is in North Carolina, just barely across the border from Georgia.

All photos from my 2018 social media post.

I got to the campsite first, and it would be several hours before he arrived. I’d set up most of my gear by then.

After he setup camp we ate dinner together and chatted and laughed in the dark for hours like old friends.

Finally, we retreated to our hammocks. The smoke wafted my way as he smoked a joint to help him sleep. I could tell he was in pain, though I wasn’t sure exactly why. It seemed to be more than the regular aches and pains of the trail.

While I normally wouldn’t have felt comfortable sleeping alone in the woods only yards away from a man I just met, he had a spirit about him that told me he was friend, not foe, and I was relaxed. I even left my bear horn and knife in the pouch hanging from my hammock instead of holding them close in my sleeping bag.

Though we were both going the same direction, the next morning he insisted I should go on since he planned to be doing a lot of resting along the way - his overall trek was significantly longer than mine - and we weren’t targeting the same destination that night.

As we embraced in a final goodbye hug he told me I was his “favorite single serving friend.” I hadn’t remembered the reference to this phrase from the movie Fight Club, and he reminded me of the context.

I told him that didn’t exactly sound like a positive thing, but he assured me there was no negative connotation for him. He said it only meant that there are people we meet along our journeys that aren’t necessarily intended to be around forever, but that make an impression on us in the few precious moments we have with them.

This week I wandered over to his page to see what he was up to these days, and was deeply saddened to learn that he had died in 2021.

He couldn’t have been more than a few years older than me, if that. It was tough to tell the exact cause of death, but at this age, and with a son who is probably close to my own sons age - it was a tragic loss.

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Yesterday I read a short post, Two Women, from

Nancy Shinn

:

Two women

Nancy shared about brief experiences she had with two different women, strangers, years apart, and the powerful, deeply contrasting, and lasting impact that each interaction had had on her.

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My single serving friend chose joy on the journey, even when it was clear he was struggling with his health.

The richness of his laugh and the depth of his generous personality made my solo trip also an adventure in the beauty of humanity.

Rest in peace, R.

Choose life today, friends.

~ Rose

Photo by ameenfahmy on Unsplash