A few weeks ago I was alone, pushing my bike up a very, very steep gravel hill somewhere in southern Vermont on a lovely Wednesday afternoon. Sounds nice, yes, but I was not having a good time. I’ve been sad. (Sad?) Depressed. On and off for a while. Months? It’s not a big deal. It’s fine. (It’s fine?) I mean, I think most people are some form of depressed because we are continuously forced to choose money over beauty and Trump is president. But, we don’t notice we are depressed because Instagram.
So as I pushed my bike up the hill I was like, this is dumb. This whole bike trip was a dumb idea. I’ve done this all before. I’ve been here before. It is hard and lonely and I don’t know why I decided to do this again. The point is, I was really having a moment getting up this hill. Like. A moment.
But. What you gonna do? Apparently there was a good waterfall at the top that you can swim in. I didn’t know if I cared about the waterfall anymore but still it made more sense to go up than back. So I made it to the top, found the trailhead, locked up my bike and started walking.
Not even a minute on the trail and I was overcome by a big group of people. I was a little overwhelmed, but honestly it was good because I wasn’t sure if I was going the right way. There were so many of them. I asked the guy at the front, is this a family reunion or something? And he laughed. No, we’re potters.
So a bunch of famous (famous?!) potters came and scooped me up and took me down to the waterfall. And then they invited me back to dinner at their house. A woman put my bike in the trunk of her car. And a man was kind enough to ride in the trunk(!) with my bike. Dinner was a feast and after a few beers the potters got back to work at their wheels and I watched. And someone gave me a plate to carve so I carved. And someone from the group said hey where did you even come from? And I laughed and I said I mean I don’t know. I was at the waterfall. And someone else said, yeah we found her in the woods it was really magical.
Magical indeed.
Anne Foster 
This is the reason we get out of our homes see what we can of the world and to meet people.