A return
One month left. I returned from a socially and physically refreshing break from the trail ready to embrace this next section. This includes revamping the daily journal. An article or book review from the trail can be fun, but is mostly hard. It gets in the way of casual writing. The trail lifestyle lends itself to daily reflection, distillation of insight from walking in the woods. I will not squander the journal opportunity through my final two states: New Hampshire and Maine.
Cold water
The enthusiasm I brought back to the trail got cold water poured on it quickly. My first night back, after a hitchhike from a friendly Dartmouth student, I camped in the woods near Hanover. It was getting dark, so I just set up in a flat spot and went to bed. Flashes of lightning and curtains of rain provided the backdrop to my slumber. Until midnight. I woke to a steady, heavy rain. I adjusted my sleeping bag, finding it shockingly heavy. It was soaked, along with my pant leg. My hand groped around the center of the tent, feeling my backpack lying in a pool of water. My sleeping pad sloshed as I shifted my weight.
The puddle was bad, but there was little recourse. I shifted the tent a bit and curled up in a corner on the high side, taking off my wet clothes and putting on some dry ones that were just sufficient to keep me warm. It was near but not quite a real disaster, and I was too tired to think about what to do about it. When I awoke, a passing community member yelled at me about camping too close the trail. Fulfilling their civic duty I suppose, but I lacked sympathy for their indignation.
Siriusly
The next day found me back in Hanover drying my tent, sleeping bag, and other gear at the community center. What a gift. Take two on leaving Hanover. Take two on being prepared for the challenges of New Hampshire.
During my week off trail, I participated in a number of serious conversations (my favorite). I’ve been told I’m a serious person. Perhaps I express my goofiness less through verbal comedy and more through doing something like hike the Appalachian trail. But though silly, it’s time to get serious about my hike: to get the writing that I want to write written before the opportunity passes, to cover stesdy mileage. I’ve booked return tickets on July 25, so I have a deadline. Time to get serious, I thought. No more failing to plan and ending up in a puddle.
Then my mind turned to middle school astronomy lessons. I remember learning that Sirius is the brightest star in the sky, and it’s gradually getting brighter as it slowly moves closer to earth (still more than eight light-years away). It’s a light in the dark. It’s a good star. And it’s a good name, I realized. After 11.5 days away from the trail. I am in new social terrain. No one will know me as Chef – that always hard-to-explain title. So I took on the new name Sirius, a moniker bringing new meaning and new identity to the last part of my hike, an identity that feels truer to myself and that I prefer. It’s a name from anyone who has told me I’m serious. It’s makes me think of a star (and checks the trail names double meaning box). And reminds me of Sirius Black, a rugged, tragic, loving, loyal, sneaky, brave, ostracized, misunderstood character in the Harry Potter books. He’s cool.
Goodness in difficulty
I will start back posting my thoughts from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, and Vermont. A hike as long as this is challenging in a host of ways -ways difficult to enumerate without just experiencing. There were some channeling times in this section. Some lonely days. Books that challenged me. Tough or monotonous terrain. Blazing sun. I also think back to the challenging parts, and the goodness I recall scales in proportion to the difficulty. Central Pennsylvania, the low point of my trip looking back, is where I discovered the music of Novo Amor, listened to the anthology of Martin Luther King Jr. speeches, read the book Poverty by America (twice), found a friend to hike with, camped behind a restaurant whose owner went out of his way to be hospitable. I needed to have that time to wrestle with some tricky topics and with myself.
Now that my gear is mercifully dryish, I’ll be staying in shelters instead of my tent when there is a flood warning. As heavy rain feel throughout the day, I sheltered to Amos getting drenched again. It rained over an inch. I’m heading out to try New Hampshire again. This time, I’m staying dry. This time, I’m Sirius.
