Found Keys
On a day where the snow squished instead of squeaked, I laced up my shoes alongside a friend and we picked a path where our footprints would sink the least. The daily grooming report described the snow as “foamy latte.” When I lost my balance and put a hand on the white ground, I remembered creating that texture with egg whites alongside my mother at Christmas, whipped correctly for meringue.
Still below freezing, it was the warmest part of a waning afternoon but the sun was doing its work. In order to leave the smallest trace of our footprints on the trail, we chose the groomed path. We rarely opted for that one, as I prefer the intimacy of singletrack particularly when running while chatting with a friend. Also, the big trail is full of off leash dogs (permitted in this area), cross country skiers, walkers, and fat-tire bike riders. I love this trait of Round Valley: known as a “grand experiment in trail cooperation,” because it’s multi-use in the best sense of the idea.
Up the first little hill and around the corner, a woman and her dog moved off to the side of trail as we approached. Just as we passed she stopped us and said she’d dropped her keys on the trail, could we please keep our eyes out?
Of course we agreed and were vigilant for the first few minutes. I had frankly forgotten about them when about a mile later my friend exclaimed “there they are!”
A simple leather keychain and car key fob lay off to the side but still very much on the path, highly visible as black on a blanket of white. I picked it up and we scanned the trails around us but couldn’t see the woman anymore. We shouted, “we have your keys! We found them!” in hopes that she might hear us.
We ran back the direction we came, to where we had seen her. We shouted again and her shoulders visibly drooped. “Oh my gosh,” she said, “oh my gosh.” She raised her hand to her forehead, wrapping the dog’s leash around her wrist.
Then the waterfall began, as if finding the keys unlocked all the things she held too tight. She told of about an aging father, a wicked stepmother, a sick daughter, an temperamental pet. All the things that sat heavily on her mind came rushing out of the pipeline between her brain and her mouth, unclogged by the location of those keys.
I handed her jingling metal and then did something unexpected: I gave a total stranger a hug. I’m not much for wrapping my arms around people in general but somehow, it seemed the right thing. She probably needed it less than her keys, but still.
Maybe she needed to release those words into the air to unlock her way forward. Maybe she needed to be on the trail for an extra thirty minutes to regulate her system. Maybe my running partner and I really needed to be heroines at that particular moment; maybe it unlocked something in us that would extend beyond a February Friday afternoon.
Before we left, I told her that the universe sent us along that path – the one we rarely take – at that particular time – which almost didn’t happen because of travel obligations – in order to show her that at least one thing could work out.
And if one thing can, so the many can also follow.
A tiny it of goodness unlocked by a set of found keys.
