Written the evening of Sunday, June 28. Hail came the next day, and I finished Hatchet. Currently reading Ruthless Tide by Al Roker, about the Johnstown Flood of 1889.
Well well well, look who it is. How long you been out here? Four weeks and some change? And this is your first blog post? Sure you changed the description--but not the title 😉--explored other blogging platforms, been logging nearly every day--I give you a rare kudos for that last one--but have neglected to post for a month. Not because you didn't think about it. Heaven knows you've thought about it--just never done it. And look, you finally get to writing one, and there's no service. Serves you right. You need to be like the USC professor in that Hidden Brain you just listened to--a better habit-former. Obstacles must be removed between you and your target habit, say, writing every day for two hours a day. Ques must be established and respected; e.g. before you write for two hours you do a circuit of exercises or washes the dishes, make the bed, go for a walk or delete old emails. Obstacles--or friction according to the prof--should be placed between you and your bad habits; e.g. how smokers can't just light up wherever they want any more, usually have to go outside or to a designated area. Then once you've written for two hours, congratulations! Reward yourself by wasting time playing MtG Arena and see if your brain doesn't explode from the dopamine rush. I don't miss playing Arena. It's nice out here in the woods.
I left my parents' house on Friday, May 29 with Aunt Betsy, Uncle Scott, and Dylan, the latter driving as a newly licensed operator of automobiles. Mom was crying, as she always does before I embark on a new adventure, new challenge. This always makes leaving all the more difficult, but leave I still do. It's what we have to do in order to exchange adolescence for adulthood, leave home and travel to faroff and fabulous places where we'll face the challenges destined for us, like destroying an all-powerfully evil ring or discovering what's at the top of a certain tower. Leaving home is a difficult thing, though it's a decision often made confidently without much hesitation. But courage isn't the absence of fear just the facing of it. I was scared as we traveled south on PA 225 toward the trail; but I was moreso determined to face the difficult path that lie ahead, one I hadn’t chosen for myself. That determination was coupled with confidence that I could make it and discipline to ensure that I would. Is one born with such qualities: courage, discipline, confidence? Or are they learned? I guess both are true, as are all the combinations between them. I believe such useful qualities can be learned or--better yet--self-taught. And if all else fails, fake it till you make it.
Before May 29, I could count on two fingers how many times I'd packed up a bunch of stuff and headed into the woods with no plans of returning to civilization that night. This hike wasn't supposed to happen until 2021, so I had to buy a bunch of gear and do a bunch of research while the days passed toward my departure date. If you ever want to do something big like this, first thing you should do is set a date. Then tell people what you're doing and when you're starting. This verbalization makes it real--to you and the person you're telling. They might think, "Pft, yeah right, I'll believe it when I see it." That's probably what most people thought before my first bike tour in 2014. But if you have history of making plans and seeing them through, you'll be seen as reliable in your ballsiness and people will take seriously your declaration of upcoming adventure. After nearly three decades on earth I feel wise enough to offer this advice: always fulfill promises to yourself and others.
What do you want to know? I'm happy to be out here, blissful in my ignorance to all the garbage drama the media puts out to boost viewership. I'm writing this in a shelter alone in the old growth forests of Western Massachusetts. My freestanding tent is set up right in the shelter and keeping the dreadful mosquitos at bay. They've been the worst I've experienced today and yesterday. We had rain yesterday and today, so their breeding grounds are ripening. Bleh 😖 Isolation from the "real world" is a reason I came out here. As HDT said, I went into the woods to face the basic principles of life. I'm butchering that quote, but you're familiar right? We all should have some experience where food, water, and shelter aren't so accessible and so easily taken for granted. Thoreau goes on to say in that quote that he doesn't want to look back on his life in the end and see that he had not lived. I'm going with his spirit, now actually in the same state as his beloved Walden, though on the other side of the commonwealth from it. I have Mount Katahdin and Walking on audio and will listen when the time is right. I've been listening to a lot lately.
I've finished six books since May 29: Stephen King's The Bazaar of Bad Dreams and the Bill Hodges trilogy, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. I'm currently reading--or listening to if you're a stickler--Gary Paulsen's Hatchet. I can't get through them fast enough and have never been so easily and often immersed in worlds other than this one. Oftentimes I am more invested in these made-up worlds than the one I inhabit. Not sure why this is so. Maybe because characters in books are, paradoxically, more authentic, especially when reading a first person account or a story in third person omniscient. I also listen to a lot of music and the occasional podcast to divert from the potential monotony of walking through the woods.
When people ask how it's going, I sometimes say "ploddingly." Not even sure if it's an adverb, but it is now, along with "trudgingly." Sometimes the pack feels heavy and it's lethally hot/humid and my clothes are literally soaked with sweat and my knees ache with every upward thrust and the balls of my feet sing dark and discordant notes of pain when I take the millionth step of the day down the mountain. Other days the pack is light (little food probably), my steps are sure and quick, hiking pole placement on point, weather mild and body not crying out so loud in pain, terrain amiable and vibe coursing with positivity. Just like life out there I have good days and bad days. One secret is to know the good days won't last forever and to wring them dry of pleasure before they're gone. Another is to not let the bad days get to you. "Embrace the suck" is a thru-hiker saying. While I'm tackling a steep incline or falling with control down an incessant decline, I am reminded that I'll be stronger for having faced and overcome the challenge. And even though we all "hike our own hike," I have trailmates to commiserate and revel with.
I was rolling consistently with a group between Weeks Two and Three. Shoutout to my tramily: Beehive, Monarch, Lance, Dr. X, Picasso, Goat, Krispy, Red Eft, Pacer, BFG, Uncle Jim, Half Baked, Cans, Fonz, and many others. Another is the artist formerly known as Purple Rain, the Sparkle-Chasing Mountain Mermaid. She's a fellow blogger from the state where people live free or die. You can follow her journey here. I think she's known as Neck Knife now, and we shared a hotel room (two separate beds) upon meeting each other in Hamburg, PA. If you follow the news closely you might have a pretty dire picture of the world, real doom and gloom, "life on red alert" kinda thing, but you don't see the instant trust that forms between strangers when it comes to saving 50 bucks and having an actual bed to sleep in and a shower with hot water to wash off the past days. While you may be busy devouring the media's "us versus them" rhetoric, you don't see people leaving food and drink for others in need or when two strangers take a chance on each other when one picks up a hitchhiker. It's been my belief for sometime that the good outweighs the bad in this world. And why shouldn't I believe it? Sometimes good is hidden within bad, like when crops get watered and streams refilled, while you get soaked and have to walk the rest of the day in soggy boots. Good is also hidden in icky things like disagreements. Disagreements can be uncomfortable and even contentious, but the result is usually either a mind changed for the better or more light shed on your true feelings of the issue. We need to be disagreed with; because sometimes our views need to be straightened--or solidified.
Ok, not much about actual hiking experiences, but it's my blog, and only my conscience can tell me what to write or not write. Almost 8 PM, dinner time. I have to find water first, then I can make some rice and tuna mmmmmmm 😋 Hiker Midnight (sunset) comes quick--so does 5 AM. Till next time!
PS on the trail, me llamo Señor Guapo 🤠o, menos engreÃdo, simplemente Señor.
¡Hasta la próxima!
Thanks for the reflections Son!!!
ReplyDeleteGood luck dear Kory.
ReplyDeleteLife is a journey