So as I mentioned in the last post, I'm well over halfway. I'm even finally out of Virginia, after spending Lent there (about 40 days). If you look at a map of the AT and I've done this crazy distance with only this tiny bit yet to go.
Have you ever gone and seen a 3-hour movie in the theater? It's great, but towards the end you get a little squirmy and shift in your chair and maybe sneak a look at your watch. You're not remotely considering leaving the theater before the movie ends, but you want them to wrap things up already. Dragon's slain, princess's rescued. Let's happily ever after and get those credits rolling already.
Right, that feeling lasts, what, 10 minutes? I'll even say 30. While I'm pretty much just about all done I still have a month to go and 500 miles to walk. Do you know what it's like to hike 500 miles? I do, and it's not always fun. Especially when I wake up with everything soaked, hike about 16 miles on the day, 14-15 of which were uphill, and then give up on getting to the shelter that would have been 18 miles for the day, pitch my tent in the rain (never fun) and do it all again tomorrow. The problem is we know what these remaining weeks are going to be like. We know exactly because we've been hiking for 4 1/2 months. And if you do that you have a pretty good idea of what it's like to hike 5 1/2 months. And you don't want to do it. The novelty has worn off, and you all too familiar with the lifestyle. Worst of all the only reason you're still going forward is to be able to tell people later that you hiked the whole thing, rather than 90% and then you stopped because you got the gist of it. It is incredibly difficult to motivate yourself to do something when your only motivation is to talk about it later. Because that's a BS reason to do something. Earlier today a fellow hiker broke down literally crying (I won't name names). I had to give him a gooud long reassuring hug as he groaned/sobbed "I hate hiking I'm so sick of it" etc. We passed a very bleak gravestone today. We've passed a few cemeteries along the AT but this marker was fittingly alone: Mr Grindstaff (I forgot his first name), 1840-1890(ish). And on his tombstone, the man's life was summed up thusly: "he lived alone, he suffered alone, he died alone." Seriously. Incredibly bleak and macabre stuff. And the tears were before that.
All this said I still have some fun times and enjoyed going through a cow paster today. But, mentally, these are the hardest miles of the whole trip.
Cameron, I am so proud of you and your quest on your trek. Also proud of your continuing to share such thought provoking observations about space, time, weight, and musings on the nature of hiking and people . Though this last posting sounds not very amusing at all, more like you are tired, cold, and nearing end of the light season. I can feel and picture you shuttering, shivering in the face of the coming dark as you steel yourself for the cold. That's graveyard scene really sounds like Halloween has come early. You know none of us who know and care about you will love or appreciate you anymore or less if you say, that's it, I'm going to Georgia via any mechanisms other than my feet. Why even Bill Bryson wrote a whole book without having done half of what you've done. And the fact that you're writing this mostly with your thumbs on a small device makes it even all the more incredible. Meanwhile, you know that your life is happening in a much broader context than that next step in front of you on the trail, right? Not only are your blog readers informed and following, not only the other hikers, not only those who have followed you from afar, or those you have touched along the way, but there are those that you don't even know, who have heard about you and know about you. Your life is a thread in a much larger quilt, and you have no idea of the strength of that thread and holding together all the different patches that make up the beautiful tapestry that you are weaving in the world. Keep on until you have hiked your hike. Keep on living your life on your hike, reaching and finding that inner light in the coming darkness. There's still warmth and fire and light out there for you even though you're facing the cold, the dark and the wet.
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