Being Where I Am – Wherever That May Be
How will you go about finding that thing the nature of which is unknown to you?
-Meno
Asheville was so excellent. Being in Chili Dogs (Pauls) house was more relaxing than I expected it to be. Theres something so calming about being in a home environment (complete with pets) that is so much more restful than a loud, vaguely dirty hostel. We ate our way around town and even though we all professed to wanting vegetables, we ate nothing of the sort. Chili Dog even cooked two fantastic meals for us, which was a treat, as he is a trained chef. I left Asheville on Monday feeling like I wish I could have stayed longer and seen more. And I was anxious about what the next three days of hiking to Hot Springs would bring for my foot. Ive always loved leaving a place with the desire to return and experience more, and Id get to come back to Asheville sooner than Id like.
Unexpected Beauty
Ive never spent time in the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee and every day I have been more and more amazed at their beauty. Im so happy we are hiking here before the trees leaf out, because the views are endless and amazing. On Tuesday, we walked across Max Patch on a clear and relatively warm day. It took my breath away. Chili, Sherlock, and I stopped and found a place that was sheltered from the wind to sit and eat lunch. I could have stayed all day, and as I watched other hikers breeze past us like this was just another boring section of the trail, I started thinking about my hike.
What about my experience on the AT is important to me? Is it merely getting to where Im going (Katahdin, hopefully) or is it about being where I am while Im there? At lunch that day I reaffirmed a decision I had made when I was thinking of the reasons I wanted to hike and the things I hoped to get out of the journey – its about being where I am. Ill get to Maine. All I have to do is put one foot in front of the other. Spending an hour or a day on Max Patch or any other place I feel compelled to experience isnt going to stop that. I thought about this a lot that day, that night, the next day, and Im still thinking about it now as Im heading home to Oklahoma.
No Magic Cure
My foot didnt magically start feeling better. Honestly, I didnt expect it to, but I promised myself that I would at least walk to Hot Springs to see if there was any improvement. On the first day, it was pretty good. I woke up with some pain on the second day. We hiked a longer day that day and my whole body was feeling great, except for my foot. So I decided to be responsible about it and started putting a plan in motion to get from Hot Springs to Tulsa, where I could see a podiatrist (who just happens to be my best friends sister). Im going to get an exam, take the time to strengthen and heal the problem, meet up with the guys wherever they are and finish the hike to Maine with them. Ill come back and do the section I skipped after that or some other time.
It took awhile for me to get to a place of acceptance. I started feeling the pain on our first day in the Smokies, so thats nine days and over 100 miles of walking/resting/icing/rehabbing/hoping. I went through all of the feelings – from sitting in a puddle in the middle of the trail during a rainstorm crying my eyes out, to being excited about all the things I could do if I just completely quit the trail entirely, and everything in between. I kept circling back to being where I am and being true to myself. Basically, HYOH (hike your own hike – remember that?). I met a guy in Franklin who had an Achilles tendon the size of a golf ball. He was just resting it until it got better. Hes probably been haunting my dreams and is most likely the reason I wake up every hour after 1 a.m. in my tent, and Ive just been willfully forgetting that detail. But I certainly dont want things to get to that point, because Id like to be able to walk when I finish this journey.
From Plan To Reality
I was surprised that I found it so hard to tell the guys Im hiking with. We are slowly forming a little family, and it hurt to think about leaving them. I was ashamed to admit this weakness and disappointed in myself that despite taking so much care to travel light, slow, and short at the beginning, this was still happening. But they were supportive and understanding, and we spent the next day eating and drinking in Hot Springs as if nothing had changed. I said goodbye to them in the afternoon and shed a few tears as I watched them walk away, because it was suddenly real.
The next day, a musician friend of mine from New York City who was visiting family in Asheville picked me up and drove me to my hotel (thanks, Ann). I walked to the mall and bought some non-hiker clothes, ate all of the kale at a Whole Foods salad bar, and got my face shaved. Its only been just over three weeks, but all of this feels weird. Living in the woods, a part of you is always wanting hot food, running water, and flushing toilets. But tooling around Asheville, all I wanted was my wet tent, my trowel, and a pasta side that desperately needs salt.
Finding a New Purpose
Ive been feeling a lack of purpose these last few days. If Im not walking and Im not working, then what am I doing? A friend told me that my purpose now is to heal so that I can get back to walking. So thats what Im doing. Ill get to spend time with my family. It looks like Ill get to do some fun stuff while Im off trail, and Im going to keep trying to Be there (capital B) like I have been when Ive been in the woods. Im optimistic but not naive, so Im hoping it will only be a few weeks. But well see.
I just finished reading a book called A Field Guide To Getting Lost, by Rebecca Solnit, that another Trek blogger, Amanda Johnson, turned me onto. This resonated with me today:
Maybe if I really paid attention to my life Id notice that I dont know whats going to happen this afternoon and I cant be fully confident that Im competent to deal with it. . . . Its okay to realize that life has a mysterious quality to it, it has an element of uncertainty, its okay to realize that we do need help, that calling out for help is a very generous act because it allows others to help us and it allows us to be helped. Sometimes were calling out for help. Sometimes were offering help, and then this hostile world becomes a very different place.
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Comments 1
Sorry about your foot man. Im a fellow Okie from the Shawnee area. I had to leave the trail last year. Fell off of a Mtn. in New York and broke my shoulder. Had surgery, rehab and all that. All better now and enjoying as you say, Being where I am. Really Jonesin to get back on the trail. Hope youre healing well and wherever you are, you are!
OneWay