“I Became Close Friends With Bigfoot” – Boy’s Sh0.cking Sasquatch Encounter

Where the Ferns Grew Taller Than Me

I’m going to tell you something I haven’t said out loud to anyone who didn’t share my last name—until now.

When I was nine years old, I became best friends with a Bigfoot.

I know how that reads. I know what you do with a sentence like that when you’re a rational adult with a mortgage and a calendar full of obligations. You file it beside campfire stories and late-night TV specials, and you move on.

But this happened. Not as a dream, not as a kid’s misinterpretation of a bear in bad light, not as a prank by older boys. It happened to me the way rain happens, the way thunder makes your chest vibrate, the way fear can turn your legs to stone and kindness can turn them back into legs again.

And even now—decades later—when I’m awake at two in the morning for no good reason, I still sometimes hear that deep, soft sound it made in the dark, the sound that meant You’re safe. I’ve got you. Breathe.

We lived on a farm at the edge of nowhere, the kind of place where “town” was a forty-minute drive and your nearest neighbor was three miles down a dirt road that turned into a ribbon of dust in summer and a trench of mud in spring. Our property backed up against thousands of acres of forest—dense, old-growth woods that felt endless when you were a kid with short legs and big curiosity.

My parents had been there since before I was born. The farmhouse was plain and sturdy, with a porch that groaned underfoot and a roof that ticked when the sun warmed it. My father worked the land like it was a contract he’d signed with his own hands—early mornings, sore back, quiet pride. My mother kept the house running with the steady competence of someone who could fix a torn shirt, a broken fence latch, and a scraped knee in the same afternoon.

And then there was me: an only child with a pocketknife, scabbed elbows, and a talent for ignoring instructions.

I grew up in those woods the way other kids grew up in neighborhoods. I knew which trees had the best branches for climbing. I knew the creek’s moods—how it rushed loud in spring and thinned to a murmuring ribbon by late summer. I knew which clearings caught the most sunlight and which patches of ground always stayed damp enough to leave footprints.

My parents had one rule they repeated with the steady rhythm of prayer:

“Don’t go too far in. Stay where you can still see the house. Always be able to find your way back before dark.”

I heard it. I nodded. I agreed.

And then I did what I always did: I pushed the boundary just far enough to feel the thrill of it.

Looking back, I can’t tell you exactly why I was so drawn to going deeper. Maybe it was just being nine and thinking consequences were something that happened to other people. Maybe it was the quiet rebellion of it—having one private place where the grown-ups didn’t control the map.

Or maybe some part of me—some ancient, instinctive part—knew that the forest held something I was meant to meet.

The day it happened started out ordinary. Late summer. Heat that sat heavy on everything, turning the air thick enough to swallow sound. I did my chores early—fed the chickens, carried a bucket of scraps to the compost, watered the small patch of vegetables my mother was trying to coax into cooperation.

“Don’t go far,” she said when I told her I was going to play in the woods.

“I won’t,” I said, lying with the casual ease of a child who believes the world will forgive him.

I headed into the treeline with a canteen of water and a small pocketknife my dad had given me for my birthday. It wasn’t a fancy knife—just a simple thing with a folding blade and a handle worn smooth by my hands already. To me, it was an emblem of competence. Proof I was old enough to handle something sharp, old enough to be trusted.

The plan was to find a fallen log I’d discovered a week earlier, covered in mushrooms I wanted to examine like a tiny scientist. But when I got there, I kept going.

Just over that next rise, I told myself. Just to see.

That was always how it started.

The forest changed by degrees. The farther I went, the older the trees looked—trunks thick as trucks, bark ridged and dark, branches that braided overhead and blocked out most of the sunlight. The undergrowth thickened too. Ferns rose to my chest, and I had to push through them like wading through green water.

I remember feeling proud. Like an explorer. Like I was discovering territory no one else had ever walked, as if the forest hadn’t existed for centuries without caring about my small triumph.

Then I noticed the sky.

The blue had gone gray. The air had that electric, metallic tension it gets before a storm—the feeling that the world is holding its breath. I’d been so focused on forward that I hadn’t paid attention to the weather turning.

Wind moved through the treetops, not gently, but with purpose. The temperature dropped fast, the kind of drop that makes your skin tighten.

Thunder rolled in the distance.

Once.

Twice.

Closer the second time.

I turned around to go home—and that’s when I realized I’d made the kind of mistake that turns a childhood adventure into a true story you carry for the rest of your life.

Nothing looked familiar.

I had walked deeper and deeper without paying attention to landmarks, without marking a trail, without doing the things my father always did when he was out on the far edges of the property. Every direction looked the same: trees and ferns and shadow.

Panic hit all at once, sharp and physical, like my stomach had dropped out of my body. I started walking quickly, then running, pushing through the ferns, jumping over fallen logs, turning left and right in frantic guesses.

Thunder grew louder.

Lightning flashed between branches like white veins.

Rain started as a sprinkle and then became a sheet, a cold wall that soaked me in seconds. My clothes clung to me. Water ran into my eyes, turning the world blurry.

The lightning was the worst part.

Every flash made the forest look like a photograph taken by a furious god—white light, black shadows, frozen shapes. The thunder cracked so loud it felt like the sky splitting open.

I’d never been afraid of storms at home, safe under a roof, my mother humming in the kitchen. But alone in the forest, with trees acting like lightning rods and the world turning violent around me, fear made sense in a way it never had before.

One bolt hit a tree maybe fifty yards away.

I watched the trunk explode—sparks, splinters, the smell of burning wood mixing with rain.

I cried. Not the dignified, silent kind of crying kids do when they don’t want to be mocked. Full, helpless crying, as if my body was trying to pour terror out through my eyes.

I didn’t know which way was home.

Every step might have been taking me toward safety or deeper into wilderness.

My legs shook from cold and panic. I kept thinking about my parents, how my mother would be standing on the porch calling my name, how my father would be grabbing flashlights and shouting for neighbors. I imagined the search moving through the storm while I ran in circles like an idiot.

And then I saw it.

A dark opening in a rocky hillside, half-hidden by wet brush.

A cave.

I didn’t think about what might be inside. I didn’t weigh risks the way an adult would. I just ran for it, desperate to get out of the lightning.

The entrance was narrow. I had to crouch and squeeze through. Inside, it opened into a larger space—dry, still, the sound of rain muffled like the world had moved behind a curtain.

I collapsed against the cave wall, shivering, trying to catch my breath. Water dripped off me and pooled at my feet.

At least I’m out of the storm, I thought.

At least I’m safe.

That’s when I heard the breathing.

Deep. Slow. Rhythmic.

Coming from farther back in the cave where darkness was complete.

My whole body went rigid. Every muscle locked. I held my own breath and listened.

The breathing continued, steady as a metronome.

Whatever was in there with me was big.

I could tell from sound alone.

I heard a scrape of something against stone. A shift of weight. A low rumble that might have been a growl—or might have been the sound of a large body settling.

Every instinct screamed at me to bolt back out into the storm.

But I couldn’t move.

Fear doesn’t always make you run. Sometimes it makes you a statue.

Then lightning flashed outside, and for a single second, pale light spilled into the cave.

I saw it.

It was massive—seven or eight feet tall even crouched, shoulders broader than my father’s by a lot, body covered in dark brown fur matted thick from rain and life. Its face was the strangest thing I’d ever seen, not quite ape, not quite human, something in between in a way that made my brain stutter.

Its eyes caught the light and reflected it back—glowing for that split second.

We had both seen each other in that flash.

For a heartbeat, neither of us moved.

Then it made a sound—low, questioning, like a grunt shaped into curiosity.

I screamed.

A full-throated scream that tore out of me as if my fear had found a door.

The creature responded immediately—not with a roar, not with aggression, but with a series of softer sounds, urgent and oddly gentle, the way my mother’s voice changed when she found me crying as a toddler.

It moved.

I heard it shifting closer, and my scream got louder.

I pressed myself against the cave wall like I could melt into stone.

Another lightning flash.

It had moved closer but stopped a few feet away.

One massive hand was raised, palm angled outward.

And I swear—this is the part that people laugh at, but it’s the part I remember most clearly—its face looked worried.

The thick brow furrowed. The eyes widened.

It made that soft sound again, not threatening, almost… soothing.

When darkness returned, I squeezed my eyes shut, still sobbing, still shaking.

Then I felt something touch my arm.

Gentle.

The touch of a hand so large it could have wrapped around my forearm like a bracelet, yet careful as if it were afraid of breaking me.

The fur brushing my skin was wet. The hand was warm.

I stopped screaming. My crying didn’t stop—there was too much of it—but the scream died like a candle being pinched out.

The creature made that soothing sound again, closer. I could smell it now—an earthy, wild scent like wet soil and old wood. Not rotten. Not clean. Just… alive.

The hand stayed on my arm. After a moment, another hand rested on my shoulder.

Not gripping.

Not restraining.

Just present.

Like it was saying, I’m here. I’m not going to hurt you.

We stayed like that in the dark. Minutes, probably. It felt like hours.

My sobbing slowed to hiccups. My breathing steadied.

Gradually I opened my eyes. The cave was still dim, but my vision had adjusted enough to make out shapes.

The creature crouched in front of me, its massive form somehow trying to be smaller. When it realized I wasn’t screaming, it made a different sound—questioning, tentative.

I couldn’t answer. My voice was gone.

But I didn’t pull away either.

The creature withdrew its hands slowly. Then, instead of retreating, it shifted and sat beside me against the cave wall, close enough that I could feel heat radiating off it like a living stove.

The storm raged outside. I shivered in my soaked clothes.

The creature noticed.

It made a low rumble and stood, moving deeper into the cave. I heard rustling—things being moved around.

Then it returned carrying dried moss and leaves, a pile shaped like a crude nest.

It set the pile beside me. Then it took my arm and guided me onto it.

The moss was dry and surprisingly soft. The change from cold stone was immediate.

The creature made an approving sound and then did something that shocked me more than its size.

It wrapped its arms around me.

Not tight enough to crush. Not careless. It pulled me against its chest and surrounded me with fur and warmth. Heat soaked through me in waves.

I was still scared. My heart still hammered.

But I was also freezing, exhausted, lost, and this impossible creature was holding me like I mattered.

I don’t remember falling asleep.

I remember the sound of rain becoming distant.

I remember the steady beat of a heart beneath my ear.

And then I woke to gray morning light filtering into the cave.

The storm had passed.

I was still wrapped in those arms, pressed against that chest. I could hear its heartbeat: slow, steady, calm.

I shifted, and its eyes opened.

In the daylight they were brown—dark brown, nearly black, and unmistakably intelligent. Not the flat gaze of an animal. Something aware.

It looked down at me and made a soft questioning sound.

I nodded even though I didn’t know what I was agreeing to.

It unwrapped its arms and helped me stand. My legs were stiff. My clothes still damp. But I wasn’t shivering anymore.

The creature stood to full height, and I had to crane my neck.

Its head nearly brushed the cave ceiling.

Despite its size, every movement was deliberate, controlled—like it understood that everything about it could scare smaller beings.

It moved toward the cave entrance, looked out, then looked back at me and made that questioning sound again.

This time I understood.

Ready?

I followed it out.

The forest had changed after the storm. Everything looked washed clean. Droplets clung to leaves and fell in steady ticks. Sunlight broke through clouds in long shafts that made the air look like it was full of dust and magic.

Under different circumstances, it would have been beautiful.

But I was still lost.

The creature stood at the entrance, sniffing the air, turning its head slowly as if reading a map written in scent and sound. Then it made a decisive grunt and started walking.

I hesitated only a second before following.

What choice did I have?

It moved through the forest like it belonged to it—stepping over obstacles I had to climb, pushing aside undergrowth as if it were curtain. It checked back often, slowing when I fell behind. Sometimes it stopped entirely and waited, making small encouraging sounds.

Hours passed. The sun climbed. My stomach growled, but fear and awe kept it quiet.

Then we heard wolves.

Howling in the distance.

The creature stopped so fast it was like someone had hit pause on the world. Its posture changed—every muscle suddenly ready. It listened, head angled, and the howling came again, closer.

Two wolves appeared through the trees, thin and gray, hunger visible in their sharp ribs and tense shoulders.

They saw us.

They didn’t run.

They split and started to circle, the way predators do when they’re measuring.

I pressed myself against the creature’s back without thinking, like a child hiding behind a parent.

The creature moved to keep itself between me and them. It didn’t roar. It didn’t pound its chest. It just stood there radiating a quiet certainty that said, No.

The wolves hesitated. They circled, looking for an opening. They found none. After a minute, one snarled, and then—like a decision made reluctantly—they turned and slipped back into the trees.

The creature waited, listening, until their sounds faded. Then it relaxed and turned to me.

It touched my head gently, like checking I was still whole.

I nodded.

We kept walking.

As afternoon wore on, things began to feel familiar. A boulder shaped like a tilted tooth. Three birch trees growing close together. The creek’s sound shifting in a way I recognized.

We were nearing the edge of the forest.

And then—through the trees—I saw it.

Our house.

A pale shape beyond the trunks, real and impossible. Relief hit so hard it made my knees weak.

The creature stopped.

It would not go farther.

Even at nine, I understood why.

If my parents saw it, they would panic. My father would run inside for the rifle. My mother would scream. People from the neighbor farms would show up, and fear would make them do what fear always does: try to kill what they don’t understand.

The creature crouched so its face was level with mine.

Up close I could see details: scars under fur, the shape of its nose, the lines around its eyes like expressions that came from years of thought.

It reached out and touched my cheek—gentle as a fingertip brushing away dust.

It made a sound that was soft and low, and somehow it felt… sad.

Then it looked toward my house and back at me.

The message was clear.

Go. You’re safe now.

I didn’t want to leave.

That still surprises me when I admit it. After the terror, after the shock, after being lost and certain I was going to die in a storm, you’d think I’d be grateful to run away from the creature and never look back.

But in that moment, it wasn’t a monster to me.

It was the reason I was alive.

It made a firmer sound—almost stern—and pointed toward the house.

So I backed away, watching it, and then I turned and ran the last hundred yards.

My parents were frantic. Search lights. Neighbors. My mother grabbed me and held me so tight I couldn’t breathe. She cried into my hair and kept asking where I’d been, if I was hurt.

My father was on the phone calling off the search party, voice shaking with relief.

I tried to tell them about the cave. The storm. The creature.

They didn’t hear it—not really. They were too overwhelmed. Too relieved. My mother kept saying, “Oh honey,” in that voice adults use when they’ve decided what the truth must be.

Later she called it a coping mechanism. Said my imagination made up a friend so I wouldn’t feel alone.

My father muttered about shock and insisted I see a doctor.

They didn’t believe me.

But I knew.

And the next day, the moment my parents let me out of their sight, I went back to the forest’s edge.

The creature was there, waiting.

I don’t know how it knew I’d come. But it stood in the shadows between trunks like it had never moved.

When it saw me, it made a soft sound—pleased.

It crouched and held out a hand, palm up, an invitation.

I ran to it.

That was the beginning.

For the next month, every day after chores, I slipped into the woods and went to that meeting place.

And every day, it was there.

At first we just sat together. We couldn’t talk—not in words. But we communicated anyway. It showed me things: which plants were safe, how to find water, how to read animal tracks like sentences in mud.

It gestured and made sounds, and somehow I understood the shape of meaning even if I didn’t translate it into English.

I started bringing it food from home—apples, bread, cookies saved from lunch. It accepted these offerings with what I can only describe as delight. Happy sounds. A kind of bright attention.

And it always shared.

That was the first thing that made me realize this was not just an animal.

It didn’t snatch and hoard. It didn’t eat everything like a bear would. It examined what I brought, turned it over in its hands, smelled it, sometimes tapped it like it was testing texture.

When I brought an orange, it looked puzzled by the thick skin. I peeled it slowly so it could see. It watched with intense focus, then tried it itself. Its nails weren’t suited for delicate peeling, but it figured out how to puncture the rind and strip it away.

When it tasted the orange, its eyes went wide and it made a sound that was pure joy.

It ate half and handed me half.

The next time I brought an orange, it peeled it perfectly the first try.

It had learned in one demonstration.

I began to test this. Wrapped candy. Twisted paper ends. I unwrapped one slowly, then offered another. It unwrapped it flawlessly, even smoothing the wrapper the way I did.

Not mimicry like a parrot.

Understanding.

Then it started teaching me too, not just leading me to places but teaching me how to think.

One day it wanted to show me water. It didn’t take me straight to the creek. It made me stop and look at moss growing thicker on one side of a tree. At ferns that favored damp soil. At the slope of land that dipped in a certain way.

It wasn’t showing me where water was.

It was showing me how to find it.

Another day it brought a stick—bark stripped, tip sharpened with a rock. It demonstrated making it: selecting a straight branch, choosing a stone with a sharp edge, scraping with steady strokes.

Then it used the stick to probe holes, dig roots, test mud depth.

It handed me the stick and a suitable rock and brought me a fresh branch.

Then it watched.

My first attempts were clumsy. I scraped my knuckles. I got the angle wrong.

It made a soft sound—not scolding, more like encouragement—and gently repositioned my hands, guiding my movement for a few strokes.

Then it let go.

When I finished, it examined my rough, ugly stick like it was valuable. It made an approving sound and patted my shoulder.

And then—this part still makes my throat tighten—it kept both sticks, mine and its own, together like they were equal.

It treated my effort like it mattered.

It treated me like I mattered.

Once, I arrived crying because I’d gotten in trouble at school for not finishing homework. I tried to hide it, but it noticed immediately. It crouched, tilted its head, eyes fixed on my face with concern.

I couldn’t explain.

I didn’t need to.

It pulled me into a gentle hug and held me until my tears stopped. Then it started making ridiculous faces—crossing its eyes, puffing its cheeks, wiggling its eyebrows in exaggerated ways.

A giant, hairy creature in the forest making faces like a clown.

I laughed—half-giggle, half-sob—and it made a triumphant sound and patted my head like it had succeeded at something important.

It understood sadness.

It understood comfort.

It understood joy.

It understood humor, too.

I brought a rubber ball once. I bounced it. Its eyes tracked it like a laser. I tossed it to the creature, expecting it to toss it back.

Instead, it caught the ball, placed it carefully on the ground, and sat on it.

Then it looked at me with something playful in its eyes—mischief, unmistakable.

It was teasing me.

I made a give-it-back gesture, and it made innocent little sounds like it didn’t understand. It stayed sitting on the ball, perfectly still, as if it had become a statue.

When I finally laughed hard enough to double over, it stood, retrieved the ball, and tossed it back perfectly—like it had always known how.

Then it made a huffing, wheezing sound that shook its shoulders.

Its version of laughter.

That month became the most secret, sacred time of my childhood.

My parents noticed I was heading into the forest daily, but I told them I was exploring, building forts, playing pretend games. They seemed relieved I wasn’t afraid of the woods after getting lost. They never suspected I was meeting anyone out there—anything out there.

The creature took me deeper than I’d ever gone before, but I wasn’t afraid now. It knew every safe path. It showed me a clearing where deer grazed at dawn, a stream where fish jumped, a hollow tree where raccoons nested.

We developed rituals. I brought food. It showed me something new. We would sit together in silence, and sometimes I’d talk anyway—about school, about my parents, about a book I was reading. It listened like it understood the shape of my stories even if not the words.

Three weeks in, it led me to a hilltop clearing that stole my breath.

From there you could see miles: forest rolling like a green ocean, mountains pale in the distance, sky so blue it looked impossible. It sat and patted the ground beside it, and we stayed there for hours without needing to do anything else.

I remember thinking: This is its favorite place.

And it shared it with me.

I tried to memorize everything because even at nine I felt—without knowing why—that the world doesn’t usually give you things like this and let you keep them forever.

Then one morning I went to our meeting spot and it wasn’t there.

I waited an hour. Two. Worry gnawed at me. It had never been late.

The next day it returned, but something was different.

It was agitated—pacing, making urgent sounds I hadn’t heard before. When it saw me it rushed over and grabbed my shoulders—not hard, but firm, like listen to me.

It pointed deeper into the forest, then toward my house, then back again, distressed. It shook its head violently. Its face—yes, its face—looked afraid.

I didn’t understand until I heard it.

Machines.

Distant at first, then clearer: engines, cracking trees, the ugly rhythm of progress.

My dad had mentioned at dinner that a logging company bought land not far away. I’d barely listened.

The creature had listened.

It turned toward the sound like it was looking at a wildfire.

Then it turned back to me and made gestures that finally, painfully, added up.

I have to leave.

It pointed to itself, made a walking motion, pointed far away. Then toward the sound of machines, shaking its head again.

Humans were coming.

And it couldn’t stay.

Something broke in my chest. I shook my head hard, tears already spilling.

No. We were friends. This was ours.

The creature’s eyes were sad. Not confused. Not angry. Sad the way my mother looked when our old dog died.

It made the walking gesture again, more insistent.

Soon. Maybe today.

I grabbed its arm and held on like I could anchor it with my small hands.

It pried my fingers loose gently, making soothing sounds even as its own heart beat faster—I could feel it in the tension of its body.

It pointed at me, then at my house, and made a staying gesture.

You stay. You’re safe here.

And then it did something it had never done with such intensity.

It pulled me into a tight embrace and held me like it was trying to memorize my shape.

Its heart was fast and irregular. It was scared—not only of the machines, but of leaving, of losing.

We stayed like that until the distant engine noise grew a little louder.

Then it released me and stood to full height.

It looked down at me. I looked up at it.

Neither of us moved at first, as if we were both hoping the other would find a loophole in reality.

Then it pointed at me, touched its own chest over its heart, and pointed at me again.

I understood.

I’ll remember you. I carry you with me.

I nodded, crying too hard to speak.

It touched my face one last time and—so carefully, so impossibly gently—wiped a tear away with a finger the size of my thumb.

Then it turned and walked into the forest.

I watched until the trees swallowed it.

I kept watching even after it was gone, because leaving your eyes fixed on the place someone disappeared feels like a kind of bargaining.

It didn’t come back.

The logging moved closer over the following weeks. They cleared a huge section of forest about three miles from our house. My father said the company planned to expand. Roads appeared where there had been only moss and ferns. The forest’s voice—birds, small animals—grew quieter.

I went to our meeting spot every day for two weeks.

Nothing.

I left food anyway, apples and cookies, as if devotion could summon it.

The food disappeared—probably raccoons, probably deer.

After a month, I stopped going every day. It hurt too much to sit in that place alone.

Once a week. Then less.

Then one day, almost two months after it left, I went back one last time.

I left the biggest apple I could find and said goodbye out loud.

I told the empty trees I hoped it found somewhere safe, somewhere the machines couldn’t reach, somewhere it could be at peace.

Then I walked home and didn’t return.

The logging eventually stopped at protected land boundaries. But the damage remained. The forest was smaller now, cut with roads, scarred with stumps like missing teeth.

Years passed. I grew up. I left the farm. I learned to drive, fell in love, got my heart broken, got it stitched back together. I became an adult with adult problems.

But the memory stayed as sharp as the smell of rain-soaked pine.

I never told anyone the full story. After my parents made it clear they thought it was imagination, I locked it away. It became my private truth, my secret month.

Sometimes I’ve wondered if I should have told someone older—someone who might have protected it, who might have tried to preserve that section of forest.

But I was nine. I barely understood what I’d met, much less how to protect it from the machinery of human decisions.

And by the time I was old enough to see the bigger picture, the moment had passed. The world had moved on.

I’ve read every Bigfoot account I could find. Every blurry photograph. Every footprint cast. Some of it is nonsense. Some of it might be real.

But none of those stories match mine the way mine matches mine.

Because I remember the details that hoaxes don’t include:

The patience.

The careful hands.

The way it shared food.

The way it taught instead of led.

The way it held me when I was terrified, not because it needed anything from me, but because I was small and frightened and cold.

People like to believe that unknown things in the woods are monsters.

My experience taught me something else:

Sometimes the most frightening shape in the dark is the one that chooses not to be frightening.

Sometimes the thing you’re taught to fear is the thing that saves you.

I go back to what’s left of that forest sometimes. It’s not the same. The cave entrance has partially collapsed. The hilltop clearing is interrupted by clear-cut patches and power lines.

But I walk the trails anyway.

Not because I expect to find it again—time doesn’t work that way.

I walk because some part of me is still nine years old and wants to say, once more, Thank you.

And because somewhere, in some deep stretch of wilderness that machines haven’t reached yet, I like to believe there is still a creature moving with quiet intelligence through the trees.

I like to believe it found others like itself.

I like to believe it is safe.

And—this is the part I almost never admit, even to myself—I like to believe that every once in a while, when the forest is still and the air tastes like rain, it remembers a small human boy who brought it oranges and cookies and laughter.

Because I have never forgotten it.

Not once.

That month changed me in ways I’m still unpacking. It made the world bigger. Stranger. More wonderful. It taught me that friendship can exist where it has no right to, and that gentleness is sometimes the most powerful thing a creature can choose.

I was nine years old when I became best friends with a Bigfoot.

I’m much older now.

But if you ask me what the forest taught me, the answer is simple:

The world is not as small as we pretend it is.