A Limp in the Woods (Day 53)

An Appalachian Trail Tale
Day 53: Thursday, May 16th, 2013
Wilson Creek Shelter to Jennings Creek/VA 614 = 17 miles
Miles to date: 752

Spider vs. Bee

Upon rising from the dead, I was confronted with the all-important decision of what to do with my day, just as I’d been with the seventeen thousand that paved the way to it. (Weird thought that, since to this point the AT has been unpaved.) Like a good number of days prior, I opted to usher this one in by going for a walk.

Every day we’re given a choice of what we’d like to do--we present-day Americans are among the freest humans ever to inhabit the planet, filled with opportunity and options--and I couldn’t think of anything better to do. My brain wasn’t bankrupt; for me, there isn’t anything quite so worthwhile as farting about in the woods, among the sticks and stones and ecozones. Well, maybe a lewd interlude with multiple Polynesian women, but since that hasn’t happened--yet--I cannot be sure.

It is striking how many of us fritter this freedom by hopping atop the materialistic bandwagon, the endless consumeristic treadmill, spending our time spending our money, accruing crippling debt, just so we can keep up with the Joneses. Freedumb. It seems we deem it more important to prove to the Joneses, and everyone else, that indeed we can. That we’re worthy. And so, we would rather own than do. And to own, we spend. And to spend, we work. Or, worse, we borrow. Sticks and stones and ecozones have been supplanted by loans and phones and those named Jones. Skull and crossbones!

I’ve never mingled with the Joneses--it’s not in their nature to be into Nature. I doubt I’d like them. The materialism they spur others unto is damaging to the individual, the economy (theirs), and to the environment. I could conceivably respect them, but I know I wouldn’t care for any of the swarm attempting to keep up with them. What’s the point? To buy things to impress people we don’t even know? To look good? To feel good, regardless of how fleetingly our purchases persuade us to? Or perhaps it’s to convince ourselves that, since we have more, we might even feel better than those around us? More stuff = more happiness, no?

That Concord neighbor born posthumously posed: why do people insist on buying new clothes when the old ones are perfectly good? Superfluous wealth can only buy superfluities.

Self-worth today seems to be synonymous with what we own. If you want to “succeed” in life, you need social status, whether attained by the automobile you drive, the neighborhood in which you reside, the phone you use, the clothes you wear, the trips you take. No longer is the quality of our families, our friends, or our reputation a measure of a human’s life. It’s about what you have and it seems, what others don’t. I sometimes have a tough time identifying joy--I react only after the fact--but I am sure happiness is not a competition. A need to prove myself proves I need to rework my needs.

Perhaps we don’t truly care what the Joneses hold dear. Maybe we’re just sold on the fat lie that is SECURITY. (Health insurance; life insurance; larger “safer” cars; home security alarms; surveillance cameras; guns to protect ourselves; computer virus shields; sun“screen”; yada yada yada…). Recall the Helen Keller thought from a few days back? She essentially inferred that the biggest risk in life lies in not taking risks. Life is a daring adventure or nothing at all. Hear, hear, Helen!

But we forget all this and choose to spend our freedumb the same way we spend our hard-earned money: heedlessly. We trap ourselves, because the trap seems safe. Or so we hope.

You have brains in your head
You have feet in your shoes
You can steer yourself
In any direction you choose
~Dr. Seuss 

Poor ol’ Seuss, assuming everyone has brains in their head!

Out here in the sticks, far, far off the grid, we isolatoes understand that the nexus between money and fulfillment is an anemic one, a myth. We ask: do funds furnish fulfillment? Does money offer opportunity? If it eats so much time trying to earn it, doesn’t it cost opportunity? And if it, and only it, provides a sense of security, are we really all that secure? Does security heighten happiness?

What many of us out here see is that money--making it, storing it, desiring it--tends to limit opportunity. It limits adventure (the truest, grandest source of it being the not knowing, the uncertainty), and it limits life. And banking it builds a false sense of security, a wasteful sense of security, as much of life is lost in its accrual. (A sense of security? Or the senselessness of security?) More of it somehow has become what many think as an absolutely necessary lifeline, like water or air. Although you can surely be in oxygen debt, you cannot stockpile air!

We know we’re happiest where money matters least--in the woods. On one of the recent sunny days we found ourselves sitting on a grassy knoll, surrounded by a field of flowers. Someone asked what we’d each be doing if we won the lottery--if we suddenly had all the money in the world. “This,” I replied. (I do not have all the money in the world, and I have not won the lottery, other than the genetic lottery to possess such a vast intellect and a deep well of humbleness.)

To paraphrase Emerson or his screwy squatter, we choose to be (filthy) rich by making our wants few. We administer the most real of riches--time well spent--to ourselves. We certainly don’t care to be shackled to the economy, that grossest of national products. Enough is plenty; more than enough is too much. (We also know that although the grass may be greener and more abundant elsewhere, sometimes you’ve just got to water your own.) Yes, we discuss freedom and its threats--all threats--a lot. We also all seem to understand and appreciate that our greatest threat is ourselves.

With respect to risk (and risk ought always earn respect, unlike the Joneses), I’m forced to snicker when I think back to an instance in Tennessee when I’d been asked by a couple of lowly day hikers(1) if I was “packin’ anything.”

“I’m packing a lot of things--” I replied.

“No,” the other interrupted. “That ain’t what Zeke means. He means are ya packin’ any heat?”

“--tha’z ‘xactly right Brock buddy,” intervened Zeke.

“HEET, or heat?” I replied.

They got louder: “ARE YA CARRYING A PIECE?”

“No. I’m carrying the damn whole thing,” I responded. “At least until I find someone else willing to carry it for me.”

“How do ya per-tect yer-self?!” they asked simultaneously, both with an air of incredulity and condescension.
“I bring out the big guns,” I shot back, pointing to my arms.

They did not laugh.

They’d been referring to a handgun, for personal preservational purposes. Same old, same old--a need for security, stemming from insecurity. But lugging a gun out here is absurd. There are federal laws in place--in most places--prohibiting it. And laws change from state to state. Moreover, you’d need to have the “piece” at the ready, on your backpack’s hip-belt or in your hand, to be equipped for whatever sadistic incident you’re anxiously anticipating. The instigator always has the advantage, what with the element of surprise--he or she knows what’s about to go down. For all others, an ambush is impossible to prophesy.

Of course, not every hiker abides by the laws--I’m a working example--but there’s one set of orders we cannot escape: the laws of GRAVITY. Even the lightest gun weighs something, as does its ammunition. And few hikers wish for more weight on their back. Or their hips. Or their feet.

Again, most the AT is on federally-protected land, where the laws are even more stringent. Or odder. (Like the word odder.) In 2010, Congress approved a law allowing loaded guns in national parks, proper permits in possession. Yet it is illegal to discharge a firearm inside a national park(2). I suspect the Federales would understand the need to fire away, if it were in self-defense, so long as you’ve shot at a human and not an assailing animal. Just be sure to hit the hitman or you mightn’t be around to be hit with a ticket.

Anyhow, I’ve rerouted what little attention I’ve got. I’ll apologize, insincerely though, since it’ll assuredly ensue, and about the same damn shite. Like everyone, I wander in thought more than I do in person. The trail and the goal attached to it don’t allow for much physical straying. Cheryl may have strayed, but not I. What’s with all this sermonizing, anyhow? Do I care what others do? Especially when they’re nowhere nearby? Alrighty then. Up the trail.

Today wasn’t as stifling as yesterday. But it was toasty and sticky, like burnt bread and butter. Although the load on my back is now a lot lighter, it still doesn’t feel like I’ve gotten out from under all the work. Because of the heat I need to lug more water, and its mass negates the clothing glut I’d shipped to Ruth’s. We scour our guidebooks, to plan for the terrain ahead, in hopes we don’t carry any more water (or bread and butter) than is necessary. Nothing weighs like water.

Yet it is so critical. 

Water doesn’t provide energy, but without it you will have no energy. 

The uninformed or inexperienced hiker might deem it less desirable than caloric weight, but he will be taught--taut?--soon enough. Go without, and you won’t go long. A hundred hours, tops. I made it a point to tank up at each spring or creek and continue traveling as light as I could. It was mind-boggling to me that TK could carry twice what I was, with not a word about it. The woman is nails.

We reached the famed Blue Ridge Parkway. (We’ll be paralleling it for days, criss-crossing it like indecisive squirrels. Sometimes we’ll even be on it for some sketchy stretches.) Hardwoods abounded, birds sounded. The rhododendrons were now in full effect, with an intoxicating pinkish-purplish flower igniting the nasal passages and eyes of passerbyers--us. If flowers could make sounds, I’m sure they’d be equally as pleasing to the ears. The mountains of Virginia are enchanting.

Paralleling the Blue Ridge Parkway

The pavement made for easy perambulation each time we crossed, and roadside bins allowed us to unload garbage we’d been carrying--mostly granola bar/candy bar wrappers. (We humans feel all warm and fuzzy when we toss garbage where it belongs: AWAY. ELSEWHERE. ANYWHERE BUT NEAR ME!) Backstreet made the mistake of following a blue-blazed parallel path for much of the morning--no one had seen him since rising--but he would eventually rejoin us at a small roadside rest area, smiling as usual.

At one point, sometime around 2pm, or maybe 5pm, we walked by a loud, multi-timbre buzzing sound. Mountain Goat had been in front and stopped to search for the source. We were all about fifty yards apart before catching up.

“What’s up?”

“Do you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“That?”

“Yeah, what is it?”

When we figured it out we couldn’t believe our eyes, or any one of the eight of them. Sunglasses flew off, cameras flew out. Then we all froze, like folks in a tableau. Below us on our left a black widow spider had just ensnared an almost ping-pong ball sized carpenter bee in its web and was spinning furious circles around it. The bee was struggling tooth and nail (assuming bees have just one tooth and one fingernail), and looked to be attempting to sting the cannibalistic arachnid, though it may have been a series of spine-curving spasms--a last-ditch effort at life. He was in deep and losing the battle. It wasn’t just buzzing we heard; it was screaming. And in one sense it was easy to hear, but at the same instance very hard to listen to. Easy to take, hard to swallow.

The spider, likely already a convicted murderer, looked just as panicky. But she remained methodical, moving in and out of danger in a blink. The web was a mess--ground cover--but the bee had likely torn apart the contraption in its state of terror. We stood there heron-still, transfixed and in utter awe, pondering the ruthlessness of Nature, and its inexplicable beauty. The spider needed food; the bee needed to escape being food. It brought to mind a line in McDougall’s best-selling Born to Run…

Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up.

It knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed.

Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up.

It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve.

Such is life--and death--in the animal kingdom. Wimoweh.

Wholly ensorcelled, we marveled with mouths open for the next ten minutes, opting not to intervene, despite our biased backing for the bee. Some things are best left untouched, and of all things, the natural world tops the list. My first video here. Bee kind...

A Limp in the Woods, now a minor motion picture!

We’d stroll for another while before finishing the day at Jennings Creek/VA 614. There, we’d spend time as it should be spent: by skipping stones and lounging beach-side on a sandy spread beside the creek. (I don’t consider these pursuits as spending; they’re investments. Investments into a life well-lived.) A redoubtable thunderstorm, yet another of portentous substantiality, began butting in on our fun so we scurried to the safe side of our shelters--they’re in side. We readied ourselves for the onslaught by promptly falling asleep, another wonderful way to invest in time.

PS: The bee made it out alive. And there was much rejoicing.

 
"Foot"note 1: There are four general "classes" of backpackers...

     D-: The disadvantaged day tripper (aka: infidels)
     C: The weekend warrior.
     B: The goal-guided section hiker--that subtotal thru-hiker, as I like to call 'em.
     A+: And, of course, the classiest (and most obsessed) of all: the thru-hiker. 

...I attend all four classes, though I frequently fail (F).

"Foot"note 2: But BB guns are not allowed in national parks. Weird government, yours.