I was out on a run on some country roads. As I took in the warm sun and raw landscape—grass, dirt, gravel, mud, and cows—I heard a voice calling out. I looked up. A woman had opened her window and was calling out to me with a distressed look. After a moment of confusion, I asked her what she said.

She asked where US Cold Storage was. I inched toward her car window. Sorry, I didn’t know. “Can you help me?” So, I checked on my phone and found it – she had been heading the wrong direction. There is limited phone service out there, so her phone wasn’t connecting. She tapped the screen pointlessly. So we spent a minute figuring it out together. I ended up explaining: “Turn around, go past the train tracks, and keep going. You’ll reach some light industry buildings. It’s on the right. If you reach the school, you’ve gone too far. If you get lost, stop by those industry buildings and ask someone there. I’m sure they’ll help you.” She thanked me profusely. She was here for work. She lived five hours away, and she was hoping to get a new job at this exact company. You could hear the weight of that drive in her voice. She pointed to her passenger seat: a neon jacket. Someone on her job site had left it, and now she could return it. I laughed and agreed: “Here’s this, and here’s my resume!”

Some car came up behind us, and I waved them past. They smiled and waved back. I gave them the thumbs up. Then I stepped back from the car. She wheeled around her faded blue Prius, slapping mud and gravel into the air. Then she drove off. That was it.

I don’t know what it was about this experience, but something resonated with me about experience of life in simplicity. No service. Giving directions with landmarks. Helping a stranger. There was something literary about the whole thing—like a fleeting roadside encounter out of Kerouac. I realized that life is still simple in these unimpressive moments.