A Limp in the Woods (Day 150)

An Appalachian Trail Tale
Day 150: Wednesday, August 21st, 2013
Flagstaff Lake to Pierce Pond Lean-to area = 15 miles
Miles to date: 2,031

PS: Sometimes I sit and think; other times I just sit. It’s the former today, and so I write. I’ll apologize, since little of the following follows the usual Appalachian trials.

Ponderous Ponder-osar(1)
or
A Life Afoot!

Growing up and up, I wasn’t like most kids. I didn’t know most kids, but it sure seemed most of them wished for toys. Most probably still do. Not me. Even in youth I desired experiences over goods. I’d learn in time goods were seldom good. (They’d soon break, the way I handled them.) But even before breakage, goods were no good to me. I possessed a boundless yen to see things, to feel things, to experience things, not own them, or convince myself I owned them.

Thoreau, yet again: “I make myself rich, by making my wants few.”

Or maybe some So-Crates: “He is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature.”

Or maybe some Funnybone: “The road to riches is paved with dirt.”

Or maybe some more Funnybone: “Backpacking clarifies what you need to consider yourself upper class.”

I don’t know why I was this way; birthmarks aren’t always visible, even to ourselves. I don’t know how I’ve managed to remain like this after all these years, despite the best efforts of assertive corporate advertisers and an increasingly technocratic, techno-obsessed society. No clue. I don’t analyze it much. But I’m happy I am, and happier that I’ve been able to continue gathering more and more experiences, given the anemic wages earned (or unearned). Not much work experience, thankfully. Just experiences that work. (There’s the reason! Work aversion!) Still, in spite of this lightweight lifestyle, it is not unladen. There are things to unload, to tidy up. Why? Because I feel stuffed. Because the loaded traveler doesn’t travel far, and we’re all travelers. Because the goal is this: OTG, completely. Off. The. Grid.

Of all the (material) baggage holding me back the biggest is a teenaged Toyota Tacoma. I’ve decided to pawn the pickup post path, after stripping the expired vanity plates. (NOTHING, they proudly proclaim, backed by their owner’s steadfast belief in the no-tion.) Gone with the truck--the annual fees, the obligatory refills, the oil changes, the tire replacements, the exorbitant insurance dues, and so on. (This was why I cast aside my ‘vette, my Che-vette.) Fuck the truck!

A friend gave me a deal. He sold me the almost-new fuel-funnel for eight G. It’ll fetch twice as much, even after I’ve profited from it another thirty thousand miles. Those funds will furnish years of travel(2), depending where and how I roam. (Travel is only expensive if we make it so; feet cut costs, and they’ll get you more places than any vehicle.) Naturally, I’ll throw my pal a few thou$and. He won’t accept it, so I’ll bury the bills within his book collection; either he’ll find ‘em or a future thrift store shopper will.

Beyond the big rig, there are other droppings to do away with. They’re comparatively small: clothing, ski stuff, wetsuits, books, tools, music-making gear (which makes inexcusable tunes anyhow), excess outdoor gear, excess anything. Most things are excess. Everything must go, including me! Gone, daddy, gone. Meat too. Down to the bone. (Animals are people too.)

Well, not everything. I’ll clutch onto some winter gear like the snowshoes--lest I become a recluse ala Christopher Knight. I’ll keep the all-important summer paraphernalia and, fret not, the guitar. The piles of dog-eared books--especially Abbey, Thoreau, Nietzsche, Whitman, Hodgkinson, Mowat. I’m not letting go my Into The Wild. Nowadays, books are my central source of companionship.

(With a good book in hand I can almost tolerate my presence. But I have a proclivity to get in the author’s way. The author may not be bothered by it, but I am. The stream of consciousness, with its reverse-direction eddies, is only rarely a lovely trickle--hidden perils lurkin’ in my noggin! I blame the authors.)

Though they’ve held up well out here, I particularly loathe these electronic encumbrances--they’ve hijacked our lives. Time to renounce ownership before it owns me. Highest bidder wins, or not. The local thrift store may win (again). Well, them and their more outdoorsy customers, of whom Colorado knows no shortage. Let’s hope they flip through the books while they’re at it. Goodbye too, to the Internet for a while. It’s an unhealthy addiction. Well, except the porn tutorials.

Although I’ve long since lost the map to any destiny I may be bound for, I’ve made a similar set of life-altering decisions on this trail. A possible name change. (One involving paperwork, not a trailname/nom de guerre change--an identity with no societal ties, done mostly to piss my dad off before he smokes his last cigarette and grinds down his last tooth, so his family name perishes. But then, what’s in a name? Maybe I’ll remain altogether nameless--the hiker formerly known as Funnybone...a big middle finger for a symbol, ala that skinny unhealthy black dude formerly known as Prince.)

Also coming, a location alteration. (Fare thee well nearly rectangular Colorado; nice to meet you, jaggedy red rocks...Ruess region! Bea-Utah-ful. Warmer, roomier, and a safe buffer from the liberal bourgeoisie. But then, how to deal with the Яepublikan Mormon morons?) (I know, I know--I shouldn’t belittle those with make-believe friends; child abuse is never right.)

Anyway, a reduction of excess, of both mind and matter. To live a life afoot! To vanish.

It’s relieving. As more weight is shed, more is lifted off my shoulders, and off my mind. I don’t need much in life. Just time and space. What do we really need? We’re lucky it’s a decision.

     Decisions. More ponder-osar...

A surprising number of the weekenders I’ve met express interest in taking their own hero’s journey “someday.” Ah, someday--that mythical day found on no calendar. But as these conversations carried on and then began to fizzle out, I’d find that my fellow Naturalites tend to let logic intervene. Then, with cold feet, they kick-start the usual self-defense mechanisms. The ol’ it’s all about balance gibberish. Extreme moderation. Moderate extremism. To them, balance in life is work, family, materialism, and perhaps some spare time--if any’s left over. A plethora of parenthesis...

     (“If only there were more time!” more than one or two have sighed.)

     (All there IS is time! I think to myself. Although nothing ages as fast as the future.)

     (Pithy quotation #1: I value my time more than any other consideration; it’s why I do so little.)
     (Pithy quotation #2: Travel is about the only thing you can buy that makes you wealthier.)

Ultimately, these saps desire--are mired in--the parallel trenches of comfort and security, not balance! And what we see often is that work ends up creating a huge imbalance, since spending habits are seldom curtailed, no thanks to material wants, easy credit and cheap (and expensive) goods and bills, endless bills. So work must thus be kept up, chewing up time and energy and, eventually, enthusiasm. Hand-to-mouth, bank-to-belly, life depletes itself. The routine rules. Yet all it takes is one simple disconnect from the rules! Unbeknownst to Mr. and Mrs. In-Between, death ain’t the only way to lose your life.

As for energy, inordinate amounts of it are required to hike the AT, and I’m certain the drop-out rate is higher for those possessing less of it, specifically the old and retired (re-tired), those retreads who’ve waited too long to pursue their dreams (…this is No Country for Old Legs!). Too long, too late, too bad. (Hashtag #Trail-Fail.) Sure, old age comes at a bad time, but I can’t feel sorry for an old, unwise man who’d engaged in soulless work till he dropped, even if he loved what he did. Where’s the wisdom in that? Can he teach us anything? “Busy about what?” posed that Puritan Thoreau. (Forgive me for how often I Thoreau up, but it makes me feel better, like any bulimic would.)

And you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it’s sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in a relative way but you’re older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death
~Pink Floyd, Time

This is perhaps why man, using ‘God’ or ‘heaven’ for an excuse, wishes for immortality. (Wishful slogan: Life’s worth living again!) He dreams this greedily because he wants more time!(3) Another crack at existence--though he’ll likely just fritter that time away too, even though it is reputed to last forever*.

Not me. Unlike so many, I know I don’t deserve to live forever, and I no longer fear the reaper. After the AT, I’m absolutely okay with death; it cannot hurt as much, unless I end up in hell and am stuck paying its heating bill.

*One must ponder: what is it about this opera, this life, that isn’t good enough?

• Pithy death thoughts: The measure of life is death. It is not success or happiness or growth or overcoming hardship. This is the very cradle of my love of life, or my tolerance of it anyway--the fact it comes to an end (unlike the AT!). Death isn’t what happens to everyone else, and it isn’t news. Nine out of ten doctors agree: death is fairly common among the living. A portent of doom hangs over all--we’re passengers on a dead-end trip (as per my latest effort below)--but fear not! Our departure helps make room for the living.

And anyway, So-Crates once said, “death may be the greatest of all human blessings,” though it might’ve been his son, Milk-Crates.

I have no point with all this, just as our lives may have none. But of the hikers I meet out here, it’s interesting the majority of them are of a like mindset. Long to live, not long to live long. Or to own. If we refrain from buying or collecting crap (even nice crap), we’re free. Free for life itself. Free from wishes. Free to experience. Free from bills and shackles. Free to go traveling. (Traveling is bad only in basketball.) 

Free to be free. 

At this moment in history, we US citizens are perhaps the freest humans to have ever walked the planet. We have a reasonable level of liberty and opportunity and wealth, since opportunity and liberty is our greatest wealth. Yet so many of us shackle ourselves, avoiding much, because it frightens. (Much frightens because it is avoided.)

Trail life is freeing, despite intermittent sensations of being shackled to the trail. Shackletons, we. Still, the trail goes out of its way to seek views and wonderful countryside at every chance. These spots are sometimes difficult to reach, but they’re almost always worth the effort, views or no. 

For one, they’re not overrun (when the way isn’t paved). And the effort itself is a reward, inciting thought, reflection. Effort is cleansing. Purifying. And as demanding as it is, the AT is not necessarily poorly designed. If it were easy, it would not be the AT. And if it were easy, it would not be what it is: a supreme challenge, without equal, rewarding beyond words.

And yet I write!

But no more for today. (A filthy hiker ought not stand anywhere near a soapbox if he’s to remain true to his self; this prose is prolix enough.) I am dirty and drained and have brain-farted far too much. Perhaps I’ll make up for this with a few pictures. Concerning today, I’ll likely do another day-late lunker of a report tomorrow. If it’s any later than that, it won’t be day-late. But just as I cannot recall the past--whenever that was--nor too can I foresee the future. My guess? I’ll write, I’ll walk, and I’ll write.

Same as it ever was.

"Foot"note 1: ...or 'Dare Think Large'

"Foot"note 2: This hike was financed through the sale of my old, bombproof motorbike. Since I've been scrimping out here, my next thru-hike--where, nobody knows--will also be paid for by that same old, bombproof motorbike. (Kawasaki KLR 650, vastly recommended for those who'd prefer to voyage by bomber.)

"Foot"note 3: Without time, where would we be now?