A WALK ON THE WILD SIDE
by Pamela Leigh
It was September 2003 when I had one of those experiences that I would now call metaphysical but at the time just seemed “lucky.”
Three friends and I were visiting Scotland for the first time, staying in the village of Dailly in Ayrshire, southwest of Glasgow. Our week-long trip was winding down and it had been a busy one; we had racked up a lot of drive time exploring Scotland, from the City of Glasgow to Edinburgh and all around the countryside. On the last full day of our vacation, two of us decided to return to the nearby seaside town of Girvan, another wanted to relax for the day, and I decided I would take a walk in a wooded area near our timeshare.
I didn’t have a clue how large the wooded area was or how overgrown, I just wanted to go on a solo adventure and be outside. It was a lovely autumn day; in fact, we were told that it was the sunniest September in England and Wales since records began. However, that did not mean that when deep in the woods it was particularly sunny. I had been walking for about thirty minutes, going farther and farther into the ever-diminishing light when I came across some ruins. What a find, I thought — so unexpected and “atmospheric.”
Enveloped in the darkened woods and stumbling over the crumbling ruins, it started to occur to me that I was out in the food chain alone and no one really knew where I had gone on my walkabout. For some reason, my mind flashed on the movie Ryan’s Daughter and the “Village Idiot,” starring the actor John Mills. A Village Idiot is often used as a device in a story or film to mirror someone’s folly. I’m thinking that perhaps it was folly for me to have ventured out with no one knowing where I was. I had barely formed these thoughts when out of nowhere a figure (old or young man, I wasn’t sure) popped out, startling me with the sheer suddenness of his appearance. In all probability he was perfectly benign, but in the moment, I decided that it would be best for me to exit the woods post-haste!
And that I did, figuring if I kept briskly walking (running!) forward and in the direction of where I thought the main road was, I would soon find it. My reasoning (albeit a bit rattled) was correct, and in not too many minutes I found myself approaching the shoulder of the main highway, toward town. I had just reached the edge of the road and started walking when a car slowed beside me, which turned out to be my two friends returning from Girvan. They had come back earlier than anticipated and were as surprised to see me as I was surprised and grateful to see them!
For a while, “lucky” was how I described that day — that my friends were passing by at the very moment I reached the highway. As time has passed, however, the day has become one of those Something Happened travel tales. It reinforced my belief that thoughts really are things, which can manifest with surprising speed, and sometimes people appear in your life exactly when you need them, for a particular purpose — and you don’t need to puzzle out how it happened, only that it did.