Amauta

I met the old man after sunset. I had been climbing most of the afternoon, following a road that wound higher above the valley until the houses below looked impossibly small. I expected the path to descend again, but instead I found him sitting beside a small fire on a stone ledge. A staff rested against the rock beside him, and a collection of knotted cords lay across his hands.

He acknowledged me and returned to what he was doing. I sat near the fire, grateful for the warmth, and watched him work. Every so often he looked away from the cords and toward the road below us. People were still traveling there, tiny figures moving between villages. Lights appeared one by one across the valley as evening settled into night. From where we sat, I could see stretches of road I hadn't known existed when I was walking through them.

Eventually I asked him what he was looking for. He smiled, and for a moment I thought he hadn't understood me. Then he pointed toward the valley, then toward the cords in his hands, and finally touched his temple.

I think I understood.

Perhaps he wasn't looking for anything. Perhaps he had simply lived long enough, learned enough, watched enough, and thought enough to see relationships I couldn't see yet. I had spent the day looking at the road immediately beneath my feet. He could see where roads came from, where they met, and where they disappeared beyond the mountains.

Tonight I am writing beside his fire. He hasn't taught me anything directly. Yet I find myself thinking about everything I thought I already knew.