Winged Words Series Story #2
In 2015, I spent the summer hostel hopping, allowing the cost of my flights to determine my destination. Who could turn down €20 airfare to Stockholm? Just imagine the least glamorous way to get from point A to B, and then add in the fact that most of my clothes at the time had been purchased at Primark, and were only washed in shallow sinks – once a week, at most. I have never been a particularly high maintenance traveler, but even I have to laugh a little when I think about being packed tightly into the middle seat of a Ryanair plane, sipping instant coffee out of a paper cup and smelling of the cities I had left behind. I also remember that summer as the band-aid I had placed on my own mind, preventing me from plummeting into the darkness that would consume me when I eventually returned home. Bathing in the novelty of the world was the salve that I could not find by staying still. The black dog of depression was still wagging its tail, so long as I kept moving.
Though most of my travels were spontaneous and almost solely based on cost, a couple of my adventures that summer were planned with more purpose. The city of Cappadocia, in Turkey, had always intrigued me. As a child, I had a strange fascination with its geology that stemmed from a broader obsession with paleontology. While there are no dinosaurs, at least that I knew of, found in that area of Turkey, the topography of the region still drew me in as an adult visitor. For thousands of years, rainfall has eroded less solid stone away, leaving behind strong, narrow columns. In those remaining rocky towers, locals have long carved out cave homes that have withstood the tests of weather and time. The hostel I stayed in had been dug out of the bedrock, and it was the quietest room I have ever slept in.
Cappadocia has a lot to offer for such a small city, but one afternoon stands out, even more than the one morning I woke up before dawn to catch the sunrise from a hot air balloon. That was certainly beautiful, and worth saving up for, but it wasn’t much more than that. The memory of the woman beside me in the balloon’s bucket who was taking, quite possibly, hundreds of selfies throughout the entire flight (just her face was in frame, no background) is lodged just as solidly in my mind as the view itself.
The day I remember most was a typical 35 degrees. A number of us staying at the same hostel decided to take on a nearby hike. It was a long loop, we were told by the staff, and it was decently well-marked. They advised us the entrance was somewhat hidden, but once we were on the path, we’d be just fine. After an hour in the heat, we made it to the mouth of the trail, and I could tell that most of my companions’ enthusiasm was dampened. Before long, I was the only one who decided to keep walking, with only a half-litre of water and my out-of-service cell phone to serve as my camera. In the broad daylight, and the path clearly marked in front of me, I walked steadily on.
For an hour, all was well. I remember looking out at the soft-seeming stone that surrounded me, it was dark, red, and warped like melting plastic. Every once in a while, a small hole emerged where someone had carved a window to peer through. I imagined what the world must have looked like when everyone here called these remote stone towers home. Eventually, I made it to a rest stop on the trail. It sunk in that I hadn’t brought a penny with me, and with nearly no water left, I was more than 3 hours from home. I wasn’t worried at the time, as I knew my way home. It wouldn’t be a fun walk, but I’d be just fine.
After miming my way to a donation of sunscreen from some kind Korean tourists, I decided to try and make a beeline back. I had no idea how long the whole trail was, but I figured it would be smarter to retrace my steps than to hope the whole loop was shorter. I looked at my nearly empty bottle and quickened my pace.
About half an hour in, I realized that the texture of the stone beneath my feet had changed. I had been so focused on the unstable ground I was walking on, that I had lost track of my path. I was surrounded by red rock on one side, and a stony drop-off on the other. My vision had blurred by this point, I was no longer sure if the skyline was shimmering because of the heat, my mild dehydration, or because my eyes had been trained to the ground for so long. I could see nothing in the distance but stone, and I was hit with the kind of lost feeling where you’re no longer even sure what direction you came from, let alone the direction you were meant to go.
I thought through a whole host of possible outcomes, and none of them were good. I heard my father’s voice of caution in the back of my mind, telling me that there were better places in the world to visit as a solo female traveler. I had chosen a couple of countries to visit that were actively warring at the time. Youth and naivety lead me to ignore him, and so far, it had done me just fine.
I had always anticipated that I would be challenged in my travels, but I never expected my greatest hurdle to be geographical. I have always had an eerie sense of direction, and it had never failed me before. Not only was I physically lost, but I felt as though I had lost a piece of myself. A familiar feeling of failure crept over me, the darkness I had been pushing away with adventure began seeping back into my psyche. I sought shelter in some nearby shade, and squinted again at the horizon, hoping for some clarity without the added glare of the sun. I took a small sip of water, resolving not to take another until I had some sense of where to go.
I decided to keep moving, along what looked to be a small trail that wrapped directly around the looming stone. The option of staying where I was seemed far worse. At one point, the path crumbled beneath me, and I had to scale the smooth rock, tucking my precious bottle into the waistband of my shorts to free up my hands. After an hour, the only noise I could hear was my own heart rate, pounding with doubt between my ears. By this point, the sun had overheated one of my ear piercings so much, that it would later permanently scar shut as a result.
Suddenly, a rustle in the grasses ahead of me stopped me in my tracks. I had been told about the smaller wildlife, the scorpions, the snakes, and some of the bugs, but nothing large enough to rustle had been in those warnings. At least, none that I could remember. There was nowhere for me to run, just a thin path, and a thin plastic bottle for a weapon. The rustling and movement got louder, and reflexively, I braced against the thing I could not see.
From the bushes popped a face I knew well, jet black, and panting. A large and wild dog stopped short, seemingly just as surprised to see me as I was to see her. I knew better than to think of her as a friend, as the strays I had faced were better thieves than anything else. I knew that a fight with a dog her size was one I would surely lose. I stood still, with nowhere to run, and because I didn’t know what else to do.
She quickly ducked into a crag in the stone and disappeared. I waited for a moment, but she didn’t return. For lack of a better option, I decided to follow her, at least through the brush she had just come from in the hopes she could at least take me to water. I began wading through the grass, and saw another path begin ahead. She was there looking over her shoulder, seemingly waiting for me. She pranced ahead once she saw me emerge from the brush, and turned another corner. I scrambled to keep up.
For the next while, her head popped around every ridge I lost sight of her around, perhaps a little impatient with my pace. After what felt like an eternity of stone, a few caves, and sand, I turned a final corner. There she was, seated, looking over her shoulder at me once again. Most importantly though, she was seated on footprints. Human ones. I looked beyond her, and recognized the path I had already walked on. I felt the sun melt away the tightness in my chest. I drank the last of my water knowing that I would make it home again. Satisfied with her work, or perhaps just bored of my company, she stood and ran past me through the bushes we had come through. I wish now, as I did then, that I had more than just thanks to give her.
I don’t know if I would have believed she was real today had I not caught her last moment with me on camera. I have often wondered what would have happened without my black dog companion in the Turkish countryside. I have also wondered what I would be like had the black dog of my mind, ever loyal and heavy, not stopped wagging its tail in time. In the half-decade since being led to safety, I am only now putting together that even a black dog has a purpose, a role to play.
Nowadays, mine is curled quietly, warm on the carpeted floor. Asleep, at peace. Still heavy, but home. Perhaps every black dog shows us what we can handle, so if we ever lose our way, we know to push on.