Ready?

Low says to me from Massachusetts "I hope you are aware of how crazy your life will be starting Saturday until at least the end of August" ... I smile from a warm early spring evening 14 hours south in Virginia. Yeah, I know, I think I'm ready.
Hot Cheese is in Mass too. I am becoming increasingly cognisant of the fact that a core group of supportive adventure partners are from or living in Mass. I remember my original smitten ness with Henry David Thoreau... and start to think... hey... maybe I should live near Mass one day. Anyways Hot Cheese tells me she's proud of my decisions and would probably make similar ones if she went back 5, 10 years with hindsight. I remind her of where her path has led her, how awesome her new husband Birdbath is, and we decide on the thought that each person's path leads them just where it ought.
During a campfire worship circle with my high school age youth group I talked about timing and paths. There have been many moments, opportunities, and relationships in my life that have seemed right... if only the timing was better. It hit me Thursday how right all of this is, what Bones and Low have known all winter... Tom Dunford (my great friend and trail Angel from Burkes Garden) was driving Luke, me, and Geronimo to where I skied off the trail in November. I watched in careful awe at the greening landscape springing, winding before me. Rain drizzled, the road twisted. When last on this road it was dark and snowy out the windows of Fischa's Volvo. Some very loud classical music billowed from a symphony through his car speakers. I emerged from my thoughts and daydreams with familiar love and recognition - he was playing Claire de Lune - my favorite song of all time.
I ardently believe God plants seeds and whether we participate or not, ,finds a way to nurture them. How was I to know back in November when checking my blog after my AT withdrawal Tom would see that song, remember it, and use it. I believe in signs. I think everyone needs sources or encouragement. As last week unfolded with Claire de Lune, a rainy 8 mile night hike very reminiscent of my Katahdin descent, 12 miles the next day in five hours... clouds dispersing through the valley in much the same way as my last days in North Carolina, the clouds distorting the truth and being of my life also seemed to disperse, and lift.
It is spring. The days will only get longer. The Earth will only get warmer. And you, you, will do what you were always going to do - spend a year journeying through yourself and Appalachia. Seek companions and your God. Return, return to Montana.
Am I prepared? Am I ready?
My heart and head cartwheel. But Low and Bones don't...apparently they've known all of this all along, and while I've been stressed in a darkened existence, like an ostrich with my head in the sand, since November they have been anxiously and excitedly awaiting this season.
It isn't Springer Fever.
It's just Spring, perhaps a fever, and like the Christopher Walken SNL sketch... the only prescription is more cowbell.