What I encounter says more about me than what’s encountered.

Walking by an old farm I see a bear in an apple tree. I motion for a passing motorist to stop and point at the bear. “Oh my god, are you all right?” she asks. “Couldn’t be better,” I say.

In the woods behind our old house I used to see moose at least once a week. They’d stand sideways blocking the trail and give me the look over, seemingly appraising this odd two-legged creature. So at home in the woods they were, I envied them. It was me who had to jump the ancient stone walls to let them pass.

Following a school bus that stops every quarter mile for one student—the blinking lights, the hinged Stop sign opening and closing like a fish’s pectoral fin—my impatience rises. That kid must feel embarrassed to have the whole world stop just for him, I think. But he’s staring at his phone, buds in his ears, in a world all his own as he walks up his driveway. Which makes me even angrier at first. Then I remember cutting in front of a stopped bus once on my way home from high school and a car speeding by almost clipping me, almost killing me, as I crossed the street. And I think really, is it that bad?

After a gathering of old high school friends, the line I remember best is: “But who had the yeast infection?” Fifty years ago we were in jr. high, laughing about a teacher who had a permanent chalk line on her butt.

“Aren’t you a marvel,” someone I’ve never seen before says as I walk by. Which makes me think of comic books, as if I’m wearing a cape. But I’m just walking.

I worry I spend too much time deciding what to wear for a walk, not for style reasons, but to fit the weather. Below freezing this morning, now it’s 60 in the sun. The kids next door are no help. Year round they’re in shorts and t-shirts. I don’t want to be one of those people weighed down by layers, nor under-dressed in only a sport bra. I see both. I don’t want to be seen as either. I want to be someone who reads the day right.

On the summit of Mt. Bromley, on the A/T, I watch a couple ascend. She’s in a skirt, little crop top, hair tidy, plaited; he’s shirtless, hairy, sweaty. Both carry big packs signaling thru hikers. And both are barefoot—signaling…I’m not sure. The trail’s all stones and mud but her feet look clean. “Are you the honeymoon couple?” another hiker asks. “Yes,” they say. As if that explains it. Begin a marriage by hiking thousands of miles barefoot. Get the hard stuff over with. An aunt once told me that the first forty years of her marriage were hard, but after that it got easier. And she was wearing shoes.

As I descend from the summit of Mt. Monadnock, I meet a group of women coming up, calling out to each other offering support. “I could never do this alone,” one says to me as I pass, me who almost always hikes alone.

A cyclist, hot and sweaty stops and says “Hi” as she swigs from her water bottle. I say “Hi” back and wonder why it is so hard for some, this couple walking by me for instance, to look up and say Hi. They just stare at their shoes. It should be the easiest thing to do—greet each other. We are all just people out walking; we’re like ants and this planet is our blessed mound.

Trash day and I’m walking by the new people’s house. Who are they? I wonder. Eaters of Progresso soup and Cheez-its. Drinkers of Mott’s apple juice. They are brand name people. Not a generic brand in sight. Across the street a dozen pizza boxes are piled on top of each other. Who are they? I wonder. Last minute eaters. I have never met any of these people and don’t know what they do. My relationship is based solely on the remains of what they consume.

A car pulls over and a man gets out, starts striding quickly toward me. “I used to see you walk by my house every morning, now you’re walking here,” he says. “I moved,” I say.

On the summit of Mt. Alander a woman stops to show me a photo of moose droppings on her phone, correctly identifying me as someone who would be interested in seeing a photo of fresh scat. She has a stuffed animal moose tucked into her pack, while mine is full of maps.

A neighborhood dog keeps barking. It sounds like a car alarm. We all wait for it to cease. Unlike the frog and goose, which we can listen to all night, the croak and honk. Sounds like the name for a British pub, I think. But actually it’s the sound of neighbors who live in the beyond.

At a family gathering I head for the sister-in-law who’s a librarian. “What are you reading?” she asks. When I tell her, she says, “Oh I have that book in the car.” “I’m reading this next,” I tell her. “Oh, I just finished that,” she says. Though we share no DNA, we share this other code that twists in a double helix connecting us.

The couple camping next to me wear aprons as they cook at their picnic table covered in pitch. It looks all so civilized, like a TV set. I try to remember the last time I wore an apron. It was a busy restaurant, my hands drenched in salad dressing, my ears drenched in the constant din of voices, rushing hot food, then suddenly stopping to be polite to strangers: Is everything OK here? Can I get you anything? This campground is the exact opposite: no noise, no rush, no pretending. Just dinner under towering pines.

“Bear alert,” the campground ranger says. “Do you say that so people won’t do stupid things?” I ask, “like eating cheese and crackers in their tent?” “No, I say that because a 400 pound sow with two 150 pound cubs strolled through the campground this morning, your site.” “So I’ll try not to be stupid,” I say, but he’s already moved on having heard that before.

We sit on a bench and watch a guy illegally double park, then run into a shop. He quickly returns holding a waffle cone that holds three scoops and with great fluidity, opens his truck door, shifts gears, and drives away. “He probably does that every day,” you say.

In line at a dairy bar on Memorial Day, we watch and listen as a guy walks by holding his young son who screams: “I want ice cream,” his tiny fierce fists pounding his father’s back. The guy keeps walking. I’m tempted to say: “Boy I’m glad we’re getting ice cream” as they pass us, but I’m not that evil, just evil enough to think it.

A group of men stand in the middle of the road blocking traffic. One holds a large rubber boot. “Roll down your window and put some money in the guy’s boot,” you say. Say what? “It’s a boot drive,” you say, “that’s how they fund the fire department.” My donation feels faintly religious, like an offering so we don’t burn in hell. On the way back there’s a large blinking LED display that says: Beware Loose Cows. I keep a keen watch but see not a one.

Today there are babies at the summit showing off their new teeth. They are in awe of cracks in the stones. They look confused by strangers, a cramp in their belly, a bug in their eye, a favorite toy they can’t have though they reach and reach. Some parts so big, some so little. Chubby and spotted and staring, though none can actually see the view. One just wants to suck his toes.

In a nearby state park, I’m not sure what to do with the destruction that surrounds me, trees felled and hauled until it’s all dirt, exposed and empty. My eyes don’t know where to go. We think it’s the sound of chainsaws we hate, but this silence is worse. I stop and ask if you hear anything. “Anything?” “No,” you say. These woods should be full of spring migration. All we see is one rufous-sided towhee flipping dried leaves under a bush.

Canoeing by a Stand Up Paddle lesson, we hear the instructor shout, “Bend your knees” at her students, adding anxiety to those trying to relieve anxiety by learning to paddle on this beautiful lake. “Don’t lean over, stand up straight, look ahead,” she yells as they try to balance their lives before losing their balance with an awkward splash.

It’s calm walking right next to the river on cool windy days. Up above where the houses are, the gusts rip into me so I have to hood up. But here by the cottonwoods, where you think it would blow hard, I can breathe again and look around.

Some days canoeing the local pond we see nothing. Today we hit the jackpot: an osprey fishing it, a great blue heron nailing it, a muskrat swimming it, a swan nesting it, ducklings investigating it, a kingfisher piercing it, turtles diving it, and a raft of lilies spreading their garden of pink and gold. It scares me when life gets this good.

“Is that real wood?” a little girl asks as we slide the canoe down the ramp. “Yes, it is,” I say, “made from real trees and we’re real explorers off to newfound lands.”

The woods are suddenly full of No Trespassing signs, which create the odd effect of making me want to investigate the posted trails. If there were no signs, I’d pay no attention to that stretch of land and keep walking.

Standing on a sidewalk looking into an art gallery, I am struck by four paintings of owls—more struck than I’d be by seeing the owls themselves. Is it because they’ve been humanized that I can relate to them more than ones I’ve seen in the wild? Or is it the artist I’m looking at who has transformed herself into these magnificent birds?