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“You can do this. You’re a great driver,” I told myself as I clutched the steering wheel of my tiny rental car as it swerved around endless curves on the busy A82 in the Scottish Highlands. For the first time in my life, I was driving on the opposite side of the road from the opposite side of the car, on challenging Highland roads, no less. With the mysterious and deep Loch Lomond to my right and nothing but Earth rising up from the ground to my left, my emotional state shifted between awe and pure stress; awe at the beauty, stress with each new blind curve. And then, with just over an hour of Highland driving under my belt, one RV whipped around a corner a little too close for comfort, I hugged the left side, and that left side happened to be full of rocks. It was immediate; I had a flat tire. I pulled into a holiday park just a few hundred meters ahead and began to process the fact that I had shredded a tire on my first day of Highland driving. I always pride myself on traveling alone. As a single woman in my thirties, it is the most empowering act in which I partake. But in that moment, I not only felt like a failure for shredding my tire, but I also felt like a failure for being alone. How was I going to handle the next 7 days of driving if I couldn’t make it through a few hours without incident? Raindrop tears began to fill my eyes and hit my cheeks, salty and hot. With tears falling, I left the confines of the car and wandered to the shores of Loch Lomond. I observed that deep, dark loch with green hills sprouting up around it, small patches of fog rolling between the peaks. I immediately chuckled at the juxtaposition of my emotional state with the natural world around me. How was it possible to feel so helpless in such a majestic space? Perhaps it had been just a few minutes, perhaps longer, but as I sat, I noticed a few ducks floating on the loch’s horizon. One, two at first, then six, seven, then more than a dozen began swimming right up to the very shore on which I sat. It must have been their usual evening ritual as they didn’t shy away due to my presence. As they landed on the beach, I remained still. One duck stopped mere inches from me, settled into the sand and began to prune his feathers, stopping only to glance at me until his eyes gradually gave in to sleep. I laughed again as I realized I wasn’t really alone anymore. I had been temporarily adopted by this family of ducks. Their generosity in sharing the beach connected me to the pulse of nature, an undercurrent you can almost feel vibrate if you stop and sit still for a bit. It was that need for connection to the natural world that had drawn me to explore the Highlands in the first place. And I wanted, rather needed, more. If driving by myself in the Highlands was the only way to connect to that pulse, then I had to push forward. As I watched each duck slowly drift off to slumber, my nervous energy began to shape-shift into a quiet determination. I turned to walk back up to the car, and even though it had only been 30 minutes, the road side assistance had arrived. “Those lucky ducks,” I thought. With a thick Scottish accent, I could barely understand the young red-headed man sent to help, but I did understand that there was no way I would reach my intended destination on a spare tire. Disappointed but feeling hopeful, I turned on my car with its little tires and even smaller spare, and I slowly made my way back to the starting point. The next day, with a new car, I woke early and drove north once again. I thought of the ducks, said a quick “Thank you,” for their quiet encouragement, turned up my music, and drove on, ready to conquer those Highland roads.