There’s magic in hiking alone, but as women, we’ve been taught to worry about venturing far on our own. In fact, we’ve been taught to worry about a lot more than that.
Though once I merely shrugged off the warnings and the horror stories, confident that I was wrapped in some sort of “not me” protective veil, I don’t usually take my safety for granted anymore. Maybe it’s because I’ve outgrown the belief that I’m invincible. Maybe it’s because I’m a mother and have a different understanding of the fragility of life and the female body. Maybe it’s because that murderer on the Appalachian Trail went by the nickname “Sovereign,” appropriating the powerful, beautiful word that is so essential to my life’s work.
This particular day, however, my desire to be outside was more compelling than my new bend toward caution. I called my husband to tell him just where I’d be, joking that he needed to know where to look for me if I didn’t pick up the girls from camp on time.
The woods are thick and the trails are steep near this part of the Hudson River. This was the place to be in the hours before the national heatwave would blanket our valley. Two hipsters with a fluffy little dog barely said hello when they passed. I assumed the single car parked at the trailhead was theirs and I would see no one else on this warm weekday morning.
Fully enraptured by the forest, all my attention was on the rustle of trees and the pop of falling acorns. I was surprised when, as I made my way down the sloping curve that took me to the edge of the river, I saw a man standing there. Alone.
His back to me, he was snapping pictures of the golden light dancing on the water. Clearly, he was enchanted. I could feel the wonder and the happiness radiating from him, even from twenty-five feet away.
But I felt something else too.
I was a woman in the woods who had been taught that smart girls are always supposed to be a little bit scared. Certain that just the right dose of fear would protect me, I’d briefly pictured my potential attacker as some rangy old pale-faced dude in dingy flannel. Then I had set off on my hike, quite confident that I would not encounter such a monster.
I didn’t. Instead, the stranger in the woods was good-looking. He seemed a bit younger than me. His muscular arms looked damn fine in that tank top he wore. The diamond in his ear was bright. His skin shone in the sun. And he was black.
And yes, that sentence sinks like a stone. Even in that moment, I wanted to erase all the programming that made me attach a story to the color of his skin. It’s not something I want to admit now, but if we don’t cast light on our shadowy, shameful thoughts and speak them aloud, they’ll never change. We’ll never change. The myths we’ve attached to race will never change.
And I was a white woman in the woods who, when forced to admit it, would tell you that the scary men in the wilderness are white and the scary men on the streets are black. Suddenly, all the carefully arranged fears that had insidiously slipped into my white girl’s brain over the past four decades were being thrown into disarray. Was this man more or less of a threat because he wasn’t someone I was prepared to see? Did something like race matter when it was just a stranger, the woods, and me?
“Hey!” he called out. I’d surprised him too.
“Hey!” I responded with a grin, willing the fates – and this guy – to see that I was open-hearted, open-minded, and unafraid. “Gorgeous day, isn’t it?”
“It is!” he exclaimed. “Looks so nice I want to get naked and jump in. If you’re single, you can join me.”
In that split second, I wanted to run away and laugh at the same time. The terror I didn’t want to own was colliding with the fact that the universe was sending me this experience in this moment.
I chose to laugh instead. Only later would I realize how long it had been since the last time someone had invited me to go skinny dipping. “Not today, sorry! But the water does look amazing.” Briefly I thought of PCBs and all the other pollution in the river. It felt better to be scared of invisible waterborne bacteria and carcinogens than it did to be scared of a person who was simply out enjoying the beauty of the day.
My legs were still moving, however. He was a distance off the trail and I could keep walking and still carry on a polite conversation while making it clear I wasn’t there to linger. Trying to maintain the connection, he called out, “It’s a great day for sunbathing!”
“I’m sure it is,” I said as I reached the far edge of where our voices could carry. “That’s not something we redheads do, though.” Later, I’d realize how I managed to cling to my whiteness so completely and so unconsciously in such a brief exchange. I used it to protect me and make it clear that I needed to stay away, safe in the shade.
“Oh, ok…” he said. I bid him farewell and kept going, still aware that there was a big, friendly stranger behind me, and I was a mile from the parking lot. I pushed on because I was doing this hike for the cardio and because I needed to get home to work. But really, I pushed on because I was a woman alone and I was only so strong and the weight of the known was heavy on my back.
Away I went, back up the hill that would take me away from the river and from my momentary friend, but deeper into this journey that everyone who has been raised within the privilege of white womanhood needs to consider in this moment.
Where do our fears come from? What people and what systems planted them in our minds? What other unexamined beliefs do we hold that are rooted in what “they” say, rather than lived experience? When are they useful and when are they used to control, to limit, to divide?
Back in the car, the panel on NPR was debating whether it’s ok for the media to call the president’s ongoing attacks on four congresswomen of color “racist.” (Of course the comments are racist. Of course the man is racist. Let’s quit debating this and do something about it.)
Back at my desk, my book-in-progress about women’s sovereignty is forcing me to explore how my complexion and the accident of my birth made me more sovereign than others from the very beginning. (Of course I was raised in the midst of a subtle, unspoken sort of racism. Of course I am racist in subtle, unspeakable ways. I’m going to keep learning and do something about it.)
And back there in the space between the forest and the river, a divine force conspired to help me see that the questions of race and safety, of prejudice and fear, of reality and rhetoric aren’t just out there sort of issues to be worked out on the radio and on the screen. They’re rooted into my very nature by the culture we live in.
The journey toward healing and changing the way we understand what’s truly scary out there – and in here – has just begun.
Marisa Goudy is a coach and healer for writers and transformation professionals. She is also the founder of the Sovereign Writers Circle, an online group for women who are ready to live and write a more powerful story. Her book, The Sovereignty Knot: How the Modern Woman Can Reclaim Her Magic and Her Power will be released in February 2020. A graduate of Boston College’s Irish Studies program and recipient of an MA in Anglo-Irish Literature and Drama from University College Dublin, Marisa lives with her husband and daughters in New York’s Hudson Valley. Visit her website to get the details on her upcoming book (https://www.marisagoudy.com/book-of-sovereignty)
feminismandreligion.com 
Thank you for this powerful self-examination and meditation. Everything you say is food for thought. In addition to all the questions of race and stereotypes, I would say that the man in the woods crossed the line when he invited you to go skinny-dipping in the woods with him. I mean why should he assume that just because you are a (white) woman out in the woods you would want to engage in anything more than a friendly smile and hello with him? Skinny dipping may be “innocent” behavior when engaged in with a group of friends, but with a stranger it cannot but have sexual connotations. So why should any man assume that any woman would be up for a sexual or sexually charged encounter with a stranger?
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Thank you, Carol. Yes, I decided to see the invitation as so utterly ridiculous – a true caricature of my fears – that I had to laugh at the time (because I just didn’t want to scream). In retrospect, I realize that I was just using one more of the survival techniques all women know – play along with the joke, pray like crazy, smile until they can’t see you, and then run like hell. And then I come back to a circle of women like this and I can stop smiling and agree… why DO we live in a world in which it’s assumed such an invitation is ever going to be ok?
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You did well and you are here!!!
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I agree with Carol Christ. No matter his skin colour, it was a man making an inappropriate suggestion to a woman on her own. You were lucky he wasn’t aggressive – no matter his skin colour! Assuming guilt is typical where race is thrown into the unsavoury brew.
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Yes, it’s true that I was lucky. And I am realizing that I needed to intellectualize the encounter and turn it into a conversation about race and my own preconceived notions because I was too scared to feel all the fear.
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Indeed. I live in South Africa. I have been able to shrug off most of the shackles of racism but there’s no getting away from men all over the world holds the power to intimidate, scare and yes hurt us physically.
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I was trained by the police department as a self defense instructor, that his comments are the sort that open to inappropriate behavior, and that ALMOST ALWAYS lead to sexual assault. I’m glad you followed your gut and kept walking.
In addition, I’m almost sobbing because, as an outdoor girl, these thoughts pervade my everyday life. I don’t want to live a life of fear, but in living a life of caution, I don’t venture into the wilderness by myself any more. I will walk public streets, but I have stopped exploring the wild. This is my greatest sacrifice. And I miss it dearly, dammit.
For me, it’s a discussion of sex, not race. And that breaks my heart, since I mistrust half of the world population. And I married a man, and birthed two boys. I’m not saying I mistrust my family. They have heard my debates; they see my mistrust; they witness and support my mission to teach self defense to women. While I’m fulfilled in living my purpose, I struggle with this seed that lies deep down in my soul. It saddens me.
I hear you.
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I really shuddered reading that this encounter could have escalated. I am so happy it did not.
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Dear Diana, I so wish we did not understand each other as well as we do. To sacrifice the wild, and by extension, our wild nature, is to lose so much. We’ve signed a nasty bargain, to live a half-lived life for the sake of “safety.” That said, here’s to all the gratitude we feel for having safe homes to come home to.
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In my 20s and 30s, I simply always took my large dog with me when hiking. It wasn’t always ideal but I figured if those places that said “no dogs” had a problem with my dog on leash with me (a solitary woman) they could just fine me — that was better than not hiking, whether in the Rockies or elsewhere. There was a place in Denver that used to loan dogs to women hikers or runners; it may have been one of the rescue organizations.
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I totally agree, dogs are WOman’s best friend, for this very reason.
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I agree with Carol too. The color of anyone’s skin doesn’t matter – what comes out of any man’s mouth does – black white brown red or purple – every alarm bell would have gone off in me. I am always scared when I meet ANY man in the woods – rape is woman’s reality.
I also resent being afraid – mightily. The forest or desert hills are my sanctuaries…
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I suppose that we need to figure out if it is possible to move through the world without resentment once we establish that threat of rape is our reality and that we have ever reason to be afraid… It’s an uncomfortable question…
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It’s an important question to ask – I feel that my resentment is well grounded in this context. – Appropriate.
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Do you know how Pete Seeger, who lived at Beacon, NY, built the Clearwater sloop to clean up the Hudson River? He and his friends (and fans and foundation) succeeded at a time when the government had declared the river a sort of official dump. It’s thanks to Pete that people of any skin color are swimming in the Hudson today.
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Oh yes, everyone who loves the Hudson knows him! The land I was walking was preserved thanks to the efforts of organizations he inspired. Such a humble, “of the earth” sort of man… His legacy will be felt by generations and generations.
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Yes, he was wonderful but he also paid a price…
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Powerful and so very complex. Your story is filled with the nuance of privilege: white privilege, gender privilege, male privilege. I prefer not to skip over the white to the male. This is a case of both/and. It’s thanks to writers like you that we will one day acknowledge our own unconscious bias.
Yes, the man was inappropriate. But his colour isn’t. As a woman in a culture clearly slanted against women, we still cannot skip over our own shadow.
My students and I have worked much with the work of Peggy McIntosh on white privilege and unconscious bias. Thank you for naming and claiming it.
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Thank you for hearing me and seeing all the textures I was trying to convey. I love this idea, “we cannot skip over our own shadow.” How very true.
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Brilliant post, Marisa, compelling writing. I was with you every step of the way, felt all your apprehension and ambivalence. Will continue to ask myself all the questions you raise. I agree with others that the invitation to skinny dip was inappropriate from any man of any color. I also appreciate how your expectations of which dangerous man to expect where were exposed to you.
I hike alone a lot. At 65 I don’t know if anyone would want to go skinny dipping with me. That said, of course as a lone, older woman I am vulnerable to any kind of attack anyone might wish to perpetrate. I am going to keep walking, and I love to walk alone–a risk I can take partly because at the moment I have no dependents.
Much food for thought here.
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PS: And here is to reclaiming the word and work of women’s sovereignty.
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Thanks, Marisa Goudy — so delightful your title…
“Greenness, Whiteness, Blackness, and
the Nature of the World”
How can something so simple, become so manifest?
Reminds me of a famous stanza by Emily Dickinson, too —
“His Labor is a Chant —
His Idleness — a Tune —
Oh, for a Bee’s experience
Of Clovers, and of Noon!”
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as long as there is no Roundup around!!!
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Remember how viciously Artemis is demonized for her response to “poor, innocent” Actaeon — who, the story goes, only happened upon her skinny dipping in the forest and hadn’t hurt her (but had his sights on her like any predator). We are restrained by that cultural heritage too.
And Artemis exists in a world where rape isn’t even questioned; of course she knew she would be a victim if she didn’t act. I wonder if we could somehow regain her power. Could it be that we did once own that?
Btw guys, just because she had it, she didn’t abuse it. Self-defense isn’t abuse. If a man points a loaded gun at another man, the target man is considered justified to kill in defense of a likely attack. Why isn’t a woman justified in doing something less lethal but effective in preventing an attack, if a historically likely predator’s attention is focused on her? Men constantly flaunt their predator status whether or not they’re planning to attack, because they have no reason to expect a painful deterrent.
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Reading this post I came to understand the Why of so many of our actions. Why does the caged bird sing? Because she must.
Why do we walk in the wild? Because we must.
Why does a black boy in a hoodie walk city streets? Because he must.
We cannot cage our souls, nor should we. Neither the bird, nor the hiker, nor the hoodie guy should be silenced. Our only small recourse is to watch out for each other, and it is a very small recourse indeed.
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