With the changing angle of the sun, even as our boots broke through the ice-crusted snow, I felt thaw in the air. There were six of us, walking through a trail in the woods that ended in a clearing that was so changed from the thicket of trees and bushes surrounding us that I felt it had to be man-made.

Breathing puffs of frosty air, the unspoken leader, Heather, invited us to all join hands and give thanks to the mother earth. I became aware that I was the unwitting participant some type of Wiccan or pagan ritual, which made me feel like a self-conscious outsider, but I went with it, gamely grasping the hand of the woman and man on either side of me.

The wind, the distant warmth of the sun on my face, and the buzzing heat that emanated from the hand of the woman holding mine caused a shift somewhere inside me. I felt gratitude, affection; liberated from the dense numbness I had become accustomed to for the last several months.

I was twenty three, an aging junior at the University of Albany and was first becoming aware that my illness had an internal engine, and possibly a time clock, that, like a hibernating animal, would shake me awake in the spring. It had only been recently in therapy sessions that I assigned the term illness to the painful experience of being alive. Before, I had just considered myself a fuck up.

After praising the bountiful gifts of the goddess, we broke hands and walked back through the trail. I felt lighter, almost playful, and wanted to skip back to the VW bus instead of walk. I resisted, trudging through the footsteps we make on the way to the clearing. Heather walked beside me, confiding, as if she possessed an ancient secret, that we would have joy throughout our lives by living with our hearts open. This puzzled me and I grew heavy again with thought. She invited us to have lunch at her house.

We sat in front of the fireplace of her enticing home. I examined her round, pleasant face, from which she had a far off, dreamy gaze. I thought that her ideology had a warm, fuzzy appeal, but I couldn’t quite get with it, despite how enticing I found the prospect of living with an open heart. Where there is light, there has to be darkness; there could be no ecstasy without pain; no intensity without depth. Generosity of spirit had to be tempered with discrimination, or you would just end up giving yourself away to those who prey on naiveté.

I did not mean to be argumentative. I wanted to be convinced, for I felt the spring thaw and longed to feel love in my heart; to open up somehow, or to someone. Debating was a good thing, I thought. I needed to get to the meat of her philosophy; to dig until I could find a hidden nugget of truth mired within her sing song argument.

Heather’s beatific expression remained unchanged, although it was evident from her refusal to engage with me that she did not want a debate. My friend Star intervened with, “Oh, Julie, you’re so cynical.”

I thought that I had been inoffensive. At the time, I didn’t normally engage in challenging those that I just met out of shyness. This time, I let my guard down.

I wanted to agree with Heather and did not intend to offend anyone. For the most part, I liked people, and I instinctively liked her, but she did not share my feelings. She told Star that I made her “uncomfortable.” This was the only blip in an otherwise perfect day.