A Limp in the Woods (Day 107)

An Appalachian Trail Tale
Day 107: Tuesday, July 9th, 2013
Brassie Brook Shelter to US Hwy 7 (Massachusetts) = 17-ish miles
Miles to date: 1,518

Rain, then Rainbows

Not long after starting this morning, Bearbell(1) and I scaled Bear Peak. It’s Connecticut’s high point. Or its highest peak, anyway. It was the first time in more than four hundred miles we gypsies have exceeded two thousand feet elevation. The last time we had we were near the AT’s midsection, where Bearbell began his hike, and when conditions weren’t quite so inhumane. Here now the extra altitude did little to cool us. But there was no rain or lightning and for that we were delighted. A fine day for a field-trip.

“Ya know it’s called Bear Peak for a reason,” I told my newest trail mate, as we skirted a tree once obliterated by lightning. The fire-bolt had peeled the tree’s ligneous hide clean off. The damage looked, ahem, current. We could safely assume it happened during yestreen’s electrical onslaught. Safely, because there was no threat of getting zapped, at least for the time being. I went on: “The beasts clog this part of the trail, like backed-up sewage. A few hikers were MAULED TO DEATH near here, in a series of gruesome attacks. So they renamed the mountain. It had been called ‘Peaceful Peak’ up to that point--”

“You are real funny, Funny-bonez,” Bearbell interrupted, filing closely behind. He kept clipping my heels and I could feel his breath.

To combat the encroachment I alternated between speeding up or stopping. He’d respond by speeding up (some people walk best under threat; some walk only under threat) or by passing on passing.

I hold a special sort of hate for tailgaters, so I resorted to a few inadvertent-looking, backward-facing flicks of my hiking poles. This pushed him back some. The poor guy is truly terrified of Ursa and Ursula, but my user’s manual clearly states that I require room when rambling. We’d known each other twenty-four hours and already we were on one another’s nerves. I began hoping a bear would intercede.

But we always managed to find a way to laugh, and I liked that about Frenchie. One on one, he could be a bit overbearing--with emphasis on bear--but I was sure if we could just meet another hiker or two, ideally female, we’d jell just dandy. A little breathing room. Panting room.

About women. We spoke of them at length, and of our troubled pasts. We even listened a little. I assured him at his age, if he could just keep working to get his act together, and then do so, he’d meet someone he loved, and maybe even someone who loved him. “Life ain’t about discovering who you are, homey. It’s about creating who you are…you’ve got to create the person you want to be,” I sermonized, in the midst of spewing a ton more tripe. (Hikers have the time to ramble.) “Start loving yourself, so someone else can.”

“At my age,” I concluded, “There’s probably not much point. Most the remnants have been discarded for a reason. Not so much spoiled as overripe.”

“You haz tu hold out hope,” he said, in that smoothly thick accent of his. “Otherwize, what iz za point of zis life?”

“Hope’s a heinous strategy,” I responded.

“Anus strategy?” Bearbell joked.

“Yes, asinine. For years I’d been over-reliant on it, on hope, but it always let me down. So now I no longer trust the stuff. I do hold out some hope, just not too closely. I don’t see me meeting a forty-something year-old wander-woman who enjoys the low-budget travel I enjoy so much.”

“Zen you should shoot for a younger one. Funny-bonez, I zought you were closer tu my age. Maybe wander-woman will tu. But it iz hard tu tell with that fur covering your face. You sure act young, anywayz.”

“Thanks,” I replied.

“The thing is I could never figure out what love meant, or what it is, exactly. I always thought I’d know it when I felt it--that it would knock me conscious. But so far, no. Maybe always no; I worry that I’d grow tired of the same woman, no matter who she is or how great she is, that is if she didn’t grow tired of me first.”

It was a glorious day and breezy enough to brush most the airborne bugs away. “Fine,” English meteorologists would say. And in fine company. It’s day-by-day on the trail, and when a bad day strikes, you know its venom will only do lasting harm if you let it. Every sunrise signals a new beginning. Yesterday’s obstacles and complications are behind us, mere memories stored for later use. (Or discarded forever; recycling time does not work. Once it’s tossed, it’s tossed, whether carelessly or carefully.) Bearbell and I remind ourselves that here now, this is what we want to do. And nothing more.

Reminiscing what you’re missing

Wishing your wishbone were a backbone

Walk away from it all. Walk away from it all!

Whether together, or alone

Each new day is the chance to start over--and repeat the same things! I’ve said it before, but time on the trail definitely recycles itself. We walk. We talk. We worry. We hurry. We slow down. We swat mosquitoes. Then the sun sets. Then it rises. Then it sets again. Then we die. Forever.

Yet neither of us crave anything except the repetitive nature of Nature. In our daily lives “back home” (we’re both officially without a home, or at least without a taxable piece of property), any such repetitiveness suggests a slow slaying of the soul. Outside, on the other hand, it’s precisely what’s craved--what we require. Weird, that. We march to the beat of a different humdrum. Slowly, but unsurely.

I once wrote in an old journal that I hike to escape routine--that day-to-day decay of one’s spirit--when in fact trail life is all about routine. Every day. New beginnings or not. The difference, I’ve come to learn, is that although routine is often prompted and measured by our humanistic yearning for comfort and security, along with some good old-fashioned complacency, trail routine is rarely as consistently comfortable or complacent as life away from the trail(2). But ultimately it’s not about daily routine. It’s not even about days.

     It’s about moments.

...and perhaps not so much about seizing them, as the gung-ho types might proclaim we ought, but about allowing the moments to seize us.

By lunch number one, we’d departed Connecticut and entered Massachusetts. Eleven-fourteenths of the way there, I congratulated myself, trying to figure it out in terms of percentage accomplished. Holy crap, it’s actually happening.

We’d each worn out our vocal cords, but thoughts continued to race as we worked our way up Mount Race. I could tell the former because we were, for once, mute. A rarity! The next hour would pass peacefully, even in the face of an unreasonably steep clamber over Mount Everett (note: not Everest). More hours passed. Clouds too. Rain, then rainbows. Mosquitoes returned and flourished when we dropped into ravines and thicker woodlands--they’d lurk behind a bush, before an ambush--but views and relief abounded each time we climbed. Breaks were timed so that they occurred high, where the sun and wind ran the pests away. Only the dumbest of hikers can’t figure such a routine out. Not surprisingly, it took me more than a thousand miles.

By tired o’clock Bearbell opted to hole up at a local hostel. It was owned by a guy or gal named Jess Treat. (We weren’t sure, but assumed he’d know once he got there, though one can never be too sure.) I bedded down next to a noisy frog pond. It was behind yet another garden center along yet another highway, this time one built by the feds, US Highway 7. I did this partly to save bucks, partly to see if it might aid me in getting an early start tomorrow. (Early starts from hostels or hotels are hard--I paid for the bed; I’m taking full advantage of it.) Paying no heed to what I’d said to Bearbell earlier in the day--that hope is a lousy strategy--I’m still hoping I might catch TK and crew.

Harboring

Only

Positive

Expectations

Never mind that in Shakespeare’s day hope was known as esperance, now an obsolete word.

"Foot"note 1: Bearbell's real name, that which he employs in real life (such as we call it), is Nicholas Sirot, which can be rearranged to spell 'Sir Nacho Toils' or 'No Social Shirt' or 'I Nostril Chaos' or 'Chariot in Loss' or 'Historical Son.' But to protect his true identity, albeit a French one, I really shouldn't disclose his name. Instead I'll call him Jacques Martineau, which sounds rearranged enough as it is.

"Foot"note 2: Though not for everyone. The trail accepts ALL applicants and some who come do so from situations far worse than what the mountains can bequeath. And that is why they come. Terra-py.