Onward

Friday, October 4th, 2013

It’s been a full lunar cycle since my stroll came to a close. The one along the Appalachian Trail--the trail that eats its young...and old. My feet are still sore. Still and sore. Too sore, still, to walk unshod on anything harder than a wrestling mat. I wrestle with this; I’m now forced to wear thick, squishy shoes everywhere I head, except for bed, where the only footwear I sport is stilettos, but never mind that. I’ve even been left with no choice but to don a cheap pair of foamy flip-flops (aka Hawaiian snow boots) when in the shower, brief though those rinses may be.

Most this is normal.

What’s not normal is to be back in a much crazier world--society, we call it; Denver, specifically--after walking for five-plus months through the serene scene that is the Appalachian Mountains. I feel like an impostor in this doomed default world, a tourist lying to myself. I try to cope with it all--not adapt--but it is an unfair fight, for I am alienated and outnumbered. I’m not endowed with the necessary coping mechanisms to accept American society for what it is, or what it’s becoming: unbecoming. And so, as it tends to, my fight-or-flight response has veered back toward flight. Still no more.

There’s a race of men that don’t fit in,
A race that can’t stay still;
So they break the hearts of kith and kin,
And they roam the world at will...

~Robert Service

Since I know no hearts to break--no kith or kin, or friends or relatives, or relative friends--I’ve already obtained a one-way airline ticket to upstate NY. It was to there I wired funds for a new/used motorbike, sight unseen. I plan to ride across the US the remainder of this month and into the next, conditions cooperating. A decompression party.

Naturally, I’ll go out of my way to pay homage to the AT when crossing it, since it left me feeling crossed many times. (Spit? Piss? Crap? Drain the engine’s oil?) Ruth and I have also made reservations for a round-trip flight to Central America. I wasn’t allowed to book a one-way international ticket, but I may well use half the scheduled flights, before walking and hopping trains north. Or south. Alone-ia to Patagonia?

In any case, old habits die hard. The adventure lingers. The beat don’t stop; the feet don’t stop. A continual disappearing act, I am bored by societal sameness. Routine is the death of the soul! Sure, this behavior’s a bit impetuous, but re-entry, as we thru-hikers (we naturalized citizens) call it, is especially tough on me. The Return to Civilization!, the second sequel, starring the fiddle-footed wanderer. (To the wanderer travel is a homecoming, an itch that must be scratched.) I am a nowhere man and though I may be nowhere near the trail, I’m still on it. Homesick for somewhere I’ve never been, I miss being elsewhere, always.

I miss being elsewhere, always. The traveler’s credo. Longing to be long gone. Destination relocation.

“I haven’t been everywhere,” said Susan Sontag, “but it’s on my list.”

“...a burning desire to go, to move, to get under way, anyplace, away from any Here,” said Steinbeck.

“There was nowhere to go but everywhere,” wrote Kerouac.

“Without end,” wrote Funnybone.

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Thank you for following along. I’ll tell you once more before I get off the floor: if, for whatever reason, this journal inspires you to grab your backpack and head out to hike the Appalachian Trail, I suggest rereading it in detail. Lastly, if you enjoyed this blog, SEEK HELP IMMEDIATELY.