I wanted to be alone to see how I would handle myself and how I would deal with different situations. I wanted to have the time to go slow, to think without all the everyday life distractions. I wasn’t bored for one second. I was not feeling alone. There were so many things to discover, so many things to see. Besides driving or visiting, I was reading books for hours, knitting a giant blanket, writing my diary to remember everything, and napping under the sun. And when I was not feeling alone enough, I was looking for a path that took me straight to the forest where I started to hike.

Hiking alone. The first minutes, you dread that something will happen. What if I break my ankle? What if I get lost? At first I was walking slowly, looking at my feet, carefully, ensuring that every single step was safe. But after a short while, I started to raise my eyes, to walk faster. Fear was disappearing. There was just me, and the wild. Just the sounds of my breath and the rocks under my shoes. I love that feeling to be fully alive, to feel my whole body.

“You feel the pain in your legs, you feel the sun on your face.
The branches are whipping your calves, you walk through the clouds.”

You’re getting intoxicated by the effort. You only feel rapture. Walking is emptying your head but filling your body with pure joy, a dose of life. And when you take a break on the ascent, there is no greater feeling than soothing your legs and the pleasure to feel the water going to each one of your cells. You sit on a rock heated up by the sun and look at the view. I think I could never feel alone in front of a landscape. I could stare for hours. It is so much bigger than me. I forget about everything, all the questions, all the doubts. Beauty is seizing me, nature is embracing me. I am part of it, I am not alone. People often ask me if I was sad to not have shared those amazing moments. But I was just happy to have them for myself.

In everyday life, you are careful when you meet strangers, it takes time to trust someone, to let someone enter your life. But on the road, the relationships are different. I’ve met travellers, a few of them were alone too. You build an immediate affinity, without saying it, you know that you belong to the same family, you are the same kind of person even if your lives, your jobs, your expectations, are different. You are there, at the same moment. It means something.

Mike was riding his bike through Scandinavia and helped me through a whole week of rain with long conversations and Estonian wine. Joris was hiking in Lapland and observing birds, he taught me about birds and was baking for me on the fire. Both of them stayed with me for a week. I’ve let them share my journey, share my experience without hesitation. And they’ve let me be part of theirs. They were my co pilots, sitting in the passenger seat where my maps and guides usually belonged. We’ve lived together, we’ve shared food, we’ve shared our life stories. I think Mike and Joris know me better than some of my long time acquaintances. Because we were ourselves, there was nothing more than us and nature. No need to pretend, nothing to prove.

It’s because I was travelling alone that I’ve met them, and all the others who took care of me along the journey. It is incredible how strangers can become part of your life, become real friends in an instant. How you can miss them. How you could cross the world to see them again, just another week.

Now I know. I understand. I’ve fallen in love with Norway too. I could go back several times and still I wouldn’t have seen everything. I know true happiness. It has changed me and what I want in life, it has made me prioritise the future. I’m cherishing every moment, good or bad, alone or with friends. I’ve read Travels with Charley, from John Steinbeck on the road (he travelled through the US for three months, driving a van). It was indeed more than appropriate. He says that he was hoping his urge to be somewhere else would decrease with maturity and age. I have the feeling, that like him, it’s never going to be the case.