I am single.  She is single. We’ve both been around the block a few times. A couple of those trips ended at the alter and ultimately in divorce for both of us. Through it all, we have remained friends. We are occasional traveling or hiking buddies.

Ouray is always a good idea and it could not have been a finer morning on the Perimeter Trail.  We found access easily enough.  All streets lead to trails and I had camped, content and solo, there a few weeks before.  Layers off in the sun.  Layers on in the shade.  It was an active day as we made our accent, then cut across a meadow dotted with wild flowers. Carefully, we chose our footing while descending slick dark rocks with deep claw marks of a glacier. Deep gorges and a footbridge across a waterfall took our breath away and left us weak-kneed to tunnel through  caverns and surmount a mega-sized flume with the aid of a stile.  Trekking between the flume and a magnificent rock wall, I was suddenly overcome by the majesty of it all.  I cast myself on the rock, embracing it with all the expansive wingspan I could muster. My heartbeat pressed into the comfort of sun warmed Precambrian.

“Oh God,” she cried out spontaneously, “Give me a man like this rock!” But what I was thinking was more along the lines of Jane Austen’s perspective when she writes Elizabeth Bennet to say, “Adieu to disappointment and spleen. What are men to rocks, and mountains?”

I hug trees. I pat rocks. I embrace nature. Nature embraces me. I am comforted.