It’s 4:08 am. Still camped in the North Carolina woods. We sat down by the river tonight and watched the sunset. I’m working on an essay, “What is your source of power?” In the process, I came across the following story in my journal.

Three days into a one week trip a few years ago, during late fall, at the end of a long portage in Algonquin Provincial Park, I saw an older man sitting at the edge of the water. As I took the canoe off my shoulders and laid it down, he half turned and smiled a brief, almost embarrassed smile. I walked down, washed my face in the cold water and sat about ten feet from him.

He was eighty-two years old. Sitting by the lake, and later sharing a campsite, he told me a little of his story. This was his last time on this portage — his favorite he said — and his last Algonquin trip. He had been coming here since his teens. Now even getting in and out of a canoe was difficult. He noticed that I had a solo canoe and asked me if I was paddling alone. He tried to come up every year, always alone, and usually now in late fall when the park was empty and the leaves a kaleidoscope of color. And almost no bugs.

Northern lakes and rivers were a primary source of peace in his life. He was saying goodbye after decades of foggy sunrises on remote lakes, moose, wolves howling and clear nights when you could see millions of stars. I asked him if this final trip was sad for him. No, not really. Maybe in a week or two. For now, he was just absorbing the beauty one last time, creating memories to carry him through the last years of his life, and thinking back on the memories he had accumulated.

We shared a few minutes of silence. Then he said goodnight, got up, and went into his tent. When I got up in the morning he was gone.

To reach the last years of one’s life at peace with oneself and the life one’s led has to be a primary measure of success. Another – living in a deep awareness of the beauty that surrounds us, living in harmony with that beauty, in a kind of cocoon of peace that naturally follows out of harmony with beauty – that is success in life. Being at peace with the inevitability of death after a life well-lived another.

Journaling question:

Are you living life in a way that it will come to a natural end with you in harmony with your inner world and in harmony with the beauty that surrounds? If not, what steps do you need to take?

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Here’s a note from her:

Hello. My name is Rachael. I am older than dirt, and just about as attractive. I am grateful, though, for these years, and one thing I have learned is that often the best way to make something wonderful better is to share it. I look forward to Rod’s daily posts the way I look forward to getting together with my closest friends.  In some ways, it is like seeing a thrilling movie or going to a memorable concert  — together is better, even when it is what we now call “virtual.” 

A little story: When I was a child, my father and I had a very close relationship. He was a traveling salesman, so home only on the weekends. When I misbehaved, my mother’s most severe punishment was “I am going to tell your father.” Of course I usually misbehaved on Tuesday, and had all week to worry. On Friday I would run home from school and sit on the front porch to make sure I got to him first to give him my version of the misdemeanor. Every time his response was the same: “You agree that you did that and you understand why it was wrong? If so, you’ve learned your lesson. Remember it.” Throughout my childhood, if he saw me crying, he would put my head on his chest and cover the outside ear with his warm hand. Walking with you and Jim yesterday reminded me of how that felt. 

• * (Jim is the subscriber I’ve been staying with for a couple of days in Pfafftown, North Carolina)