Erwin TN !!! (a long time coming)

I am in Erwin Tennessee. Jeremiah Johnson and I have pushed hard, big mile days for nearly two weeks to get here Friday to meet his friend. My left knee is bothering me a bit, but I am taking a day off from hiking today to rest and hang out. I went absolutely huge last night and slept in a king size bed at Holiday Inn Express (thanks grandpa!) and JJ's friend Rex even drove us to Johnson City for dinner! A broccoli Cheese, butter, sour cream baked potato and bbq baked beans went down well as the waitresses cruised around in Firehouse- ish suspenders. The miles and smiles are coming quicker and easier than I could have hoped. All seems well with the dream of a Daleville return before May 15.
After leaving Holiday Inn Express JJ and Rex dropped me back at Uncle Johnny's Hostel. Joe Kick Ass and his girlfriend are graciously grillin up burgers, and hot dogs along with other snacks (candy bars, cookies, chips, cole slaw, beer etc) as some amazing trail magic. The crew I was hiking around in the Smokies have caught back up; Truckin, Wendy, St. Patty's etc, and an afternoon of food and fiends in the sunshine makes me feel like perhaps, finally, the AT is as it should be.
My cornrows are still holiding up. It's strange to be in town showering, but not washing my hair. Dancruff is definately setting in, but having them tight, reasonaly snag free, and hair out of my face seems worthwhile to keep them in longer. As long as bugs don't stat crawling around.... I should be set to keep my hair up till.... dare I saw Daleville?
I beleive the count down is 260 more miles from Erwin-Damascus + Bland- Daleville. I can scarce believe I'm so close to finishing this journey, but as always, am embracing and accepting the principle of not counting my chickens before they hatch.
Low and his girlfriend Erin sent me an incredible Easter- themeed goodie box to Standing Bear Hostel. In his card he said "when it don't come easy, pray for strength, and when it does- ask for humility". I keep thinking of that, journeys coming full circle, and the most exciting part being just around the river bend.
I used to think Erwin would be bittersweet and sad for me, it being one of my first trail towns visited during Hasty's 2007 hike. As it turns out, that is a pale memory to the vivid dream I'm currently living.
Life is lovely, companionship is fufilling and delightful, the music is jamming, and the weather is brilliant. Happy and grateful, I couldn't ask for more =)

A walk in the park?

WHOEVER made up that saying in reference to Great Smokey Mountain National Park was off hteir rocker! I've been having a great time back on the AT. It all started with a static-y but fulfilling and surprising roa trip with Maggie and MAtt to Fontana Dam. (pics to come later). Cowboy camped under gorgeous stars an hiked on a buggy warm day the next day. Monday snow started, Tuesday snowed all day. I'm making good time and miles - all things considered. But all thingings considered I traveresed the highest peak on the AT today and cruised 12 ish miles in 2 feet of snow. It's goot to be in Gatlinburg tonight, warm, with new friends! More to come later! Gotta get some sleep and hike again tommorrow. Pushing hard to get out of these high elevations and get my easter candy CRAB Low and Erin mailed to Standing Bear!!!

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.

Cartwheels.

I obsessively check my phone, email etc to hear from people. Perhaps this is a nervous habit developed from a winter of waiting for life to paddle out of my eddy and into the current. It seems even now, as the current slowly picks up and river swells I am still in search mode. Is it excitement? habit? addiction? Perhaps somewhere in between.
I am trying as best I can to savor my last remnants of winter around Daleville. I have been spending as much time as humanly feasible with friends, family, working, and getting my stuff together for- the leaving.
The best possible way I can explain this anticipation is cartwheels. At any given moment almost every day I feel it absolutely necessary and appropriate to throw my arms up, tumble towards the ground, kick my feet over my head, and land right side up... blood rushing from myhead back to my feet. To prove my world can go upside down and land right side up? Because I've always loved that song by the Pixies "with your feet in the air and your head on the ground" ? Or because my Alice in Wonderland fetish draws me toward a world full of cheshire cat like nonsense? I don't know... but cartwheels... that's just what I'm working with =)
Last week I had a great portrait session with a high school senior, returned to the spot of my snowy Nov AT exit, and introduced my youth group to Alta Mons. A really great week overall, and an exciting preview for the adventures to come starting Saturday.
I don't have a lot to say right now, but just wanted to update that Bound has warmed up, and is getting mark, set, GO for Spring / Summer Epic ness!

Window- OPEN

Winter and directionless has finally broke!

April 4 return to Fontana Dam, walk north on the AT to Damascus, drive to Bland, walk to Daleville by
May 15 Trailaversary (day I started this whole journey 2008)
May 16ish Trail Days in Damascus VA with many close friends from my Daleville-Katahdin stretch, including Low and Bones!!! just in time to grab Bones and
May 18 ish start the epic westward drive to Montana (with a few stops in between naturally)
May 29- end o August Work and live in Glacier National Park for the Glacier Institute Field Camp

Only two huge questions linger:
Who will keep Geronimo May 29- late August?
Where will I work after Glacier Institute?

Many thanks to all of you for your constant love support and prayers (especailly my extended family, The Botetourt Commons community, and my PENMAR FAMILY!!!). If you have suggestions as to the answer of my lingering questions ideas are mucho appreciated!

To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

Time seems shifting to those who are waiting. As my life has little structure or markers right now I have little reference to what makes a day, a week, a month. This isn't new, walking the Appalachian Trail morphs time too, but in a more grounded biological way. Here lately moments linger in my mind.
I have had two brilliant interviews with two amazing companies in Montana for summer positions since January. I have job searched nearly every day since I November withdrawal from the AT. Sometimes I search for immediate jobs in Virginia, sometimes I search for more long term positions in Montana. I comb classifieds, environmental job boards, informational newsletters, searching, wanting, waiting on something.
These two positions are the best I've found. Both in western Montana, a place my heart has ardently longed for since this summer. It's funny, sometimes you just want things, other times you have innate gut feeling that IS what's to be. It's not to say I am tired or resentful of Virginia. I have and always will love it here.
I spent the afternoon walking brick sidewalks laid before William Clark journeyed down the Missouri River with my best childhood friend (walking w my friend, sorry to say she didn't kick it w WC). We laughed about past and present while swinging at an elementary school playground. Afterwards we piled in my car to get the best Sno Cones in the universe, only to find the Sno Shack closed, and settle for iced coffee and a smoothie from the new doughnut shack. Yesterday I met another life long friend in the middle of a country road both on our bikes, she left her parents, I left mine, we met in the middle 'neath that old Georgia pine... (that's a song reference we didn't really meet under a pine, but nonetheless once together we biked around for awhile). Life and love are beautiful in Virginia. But I strongly feel, it is time.
I have two plans right now. Both are a financial stretch but faith is going out on a limb... right?
Plan A (if MT comes through): work here until April when I return to Fontana on the AT, walk back to Daleville by May 15, catch up with friends at trail days, drive to Montana with Geronimo and Bones for sidekicks, and start working there beginning of June
Plan B (MT job rejection): work here until mid June when I return to Fontana on the AT, walk back to Daleville for however long it takes, back to the grinding stone on a job search (Missoula / MT focused by the fall)
For reasons inexplicable via this medium I desperately hope for Plan A, and those that hope are not put to shame... right? Regardless any prayers would be mucho appreciated. I should here in the next 7 days which path will illuminate.
I've been thinking about that a lot lately, paths and illumination. The bible says thy word is lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. Scriptures like this constantly find their way to my fingers, eyes, and heart. I spent half of last week labored on hiking trails at the camp I love. A methodical mind and body consuming task that enraptured me with purpose and joy. I found myself laughing to Geronimo "okay God, teach me about paths, literally and metaphorically, I'm here, tell me what you will, just please, please, send me a light".
While I wait it seems fate has humorous tests for me. I spent the last half of this week nearly crippled and immobile with back pain. I have the great fortune to have a Dad who has coped with acne, receding gums, and back pain the majority of his life... genetics... what a beautiful thing. Normally I tough out pain or sicknesses, but as someone too poor to have health insurance and too busy to say no to jobs if sick I have been popping pills like no body's business. I'm happy to say that the back pain died down last night which is fortunate because I awoke this morning with a very goopy eye. Sorry to say my dad, the pharmacist, deemed it pink eye, and as the day progressed I'm thinking it is in both eyes. Alas, more pills. I won't go into how sick the preschool class I subbed for Friday was... but I wouldn't be surprised if those germy sick kids were the ones to infect me.
It's not all doom and gloom however. I has been about 60 degrees here the past 3 days. Tomorrow I plan to lead my youth group over the section of the AT my brother started about a year ago; apple orchard mountain, the guillotine, and Thunder Ridge. And if that wasn't good enough my brilliant friend Issac plans to come along too!
So I should get some sleep. Low's much anticipated daylight savings will rob me of an hour, small price to pay for the hope, light and joy of ... SPRING =)

"When the Lord closes a door, somewhere He opens a window. ..."~SoM

Don't panic

Bones sinkin like stones all that we fought for. Homes places we've grown, all of us are done for...
We live in a beautiful world, yea we do, yea we do.

Last week I spent 3 out of 6 days walking a path you call the Appalachian Trail. That is its official name, sure, but I'm beginning to wonder if that is a sort of- scientific name. Perhaps the A.T is its common name. But even still, some of us have nicknames for objects we are intimate with, animals, people. Our names for these things surpass science and common, these names stem out of the intimate fondness, affection, reverence, humbleness, and sometimes anger, otherwise known as love. I am not sure what to refer to this path as anymore. It has become something bigger and more profound than I can conceive.

Day 1. Bethany agreed to hike MacAfee's Knob on a freakishly warm afternoon. She is not much of a hiker, but nonetheless crawled into my car wearing a tank top and yoga pants, purse, bag, water, and Georgia Tech long sleeve T in tow. Heidi and Geronimo tagged along too. We laughed and meandered down the fire road, then the AT. Bethany has been my friend, occasionally enemy, since 2nd grade. We talk about boys, jobs, family, dreams. We say ridiculous freakish things that we would censor in other company. I am so happy to have her in this, my world, of sorts. We break under a power line to let a young glowing couple pass us, and a trail runner with his backpack wearing - tail uncropped- larger than Geronimo weimaraner. It is a short hike (for me, probably endless for her), but we snack on OCPs (oatmeal cream pies) hummus, crackers, cheese, like I'm in the middle of a 15-20 mile day. The dogs get jumbo chewy snack bones. We rise refreshed, and walk the last hardest bit, weaving through huge boulders to the much photographed, always beautiful overlook. By now what started as a 60 degree day has turned windy, damp, with temperatures dropping. We anticipate looming grey clouds working thru the Catawba Valley towards us. I put on my hooded softshell Santa brought that I have become (in true gear junkie style) smitten with. I loan her my mittens and hat. We descend faster. I have been nervous it may rain. I had decided to defy it, defy that fear, venture outside anyway. The fear of weather ; understandable, irrational, a helpless fear. Well. Our final half of the fire road was in snow. Perfect beautiful huge flaky snow. Cold and wind burnt there was nothing to do but smile and laugh - FINALLY.

Day 2. I went to my pre AT home, Allendale, to pick up my black and white photographs from the "Star City Project" . These images were part of the FIRST public showing of my photography, an entire coffee shop with about 20 some matted framed prints - beautiful. Anyway there's another gallery I'm trying to get them into and needed to pick them up from my friend and neighbor (I stashed them in her place instead of storing them before leaving to hike). So I carefully wrapped the frames in blankets, put them in a box, and stayed for hours talking to Sheri and my old landlord. Two guys moved into my apartment last week. Geronimo tried to go in, as if to think, HEY we're home finally!!! Part me thought that too, but I didn't press for the opportunity to walk/look around. "Leave it" I thought, "let it be". So eventually Mo and I left, I wanted to take the long way back to my parents. I drove through Salem to park and walk the ridge south of the 311 parking lot. We just went to the first overlook. It was getting late, Ben (my brother) was on his way home for the weekend, and really I just went to wonder. I let my mind and heart wonder. wander. I asked big questions. Studied this landscape. The drive was soaked in warm red winter sunset light. I rolled the windows down.

Day 3. I woke up KNOWING this would be my day to climb Dragon's Tooth. I put a roll of infrared film (that I bought in Missoula in college) in my 35mm camera just before New Year's. I started that roll on the Tinker Cliffs, shot it at MAK, and really wanted to triple crown it, with DT (the three popular highlights of the Appalachian Trail in this area). It was another beautiful sunny day, and despite it being a Saturday, and my loathing of how crowded it might be, I knew TODAY must be the day. I pestered my family. Hopped in my brother's bed to wake him up, get him in on the adventure. He's a big climber and (because of me and Alta Mons) loves the woods. I thought, YEAH how could he NOT come to Dragon's Tooth?! He had safer, more ordinary plans with Dad though - haircut- golf. He said no. Dad was also busy being ordinary, and turns out my Mom was busy keeping things in order on her one day off from a job and church. I threw a bit of a depressed rejected tantrum, took a breath, put myself together, grabbed Mo's jacket and hit the road. I can't explain this hike to you. This hike was intimate and personal. I continued my questions from Day 2, I reverted to my thru hike mode, quick steady methodical movement. Heart. Body. Feet. Dirt. Sky. Water. Pulse. I must have passed 20 people in the hour it took to get to the top. Once there I slipped my climbing shoes on and played around. I finished my roll of film. I read scripture. I sat upright, on the rock pinnacle, noticing the southern valley for the first time. A quiet calm anxious wisdom came, and I knew something would happen. It did. But instead of being rattled, spiraling out of control, and falling apart like I might've predicted I simply photographed more, wrapped up the walk, slipped into flip flops, and drove to the library to get Eat Pray Love on CD (I've been meaning to read that!). My family met at the Homeplace for my sister's birthday dinner. I scarfed down food, but remained mostly quiet.

These experiences have served as a catalyst of further prayer and mediation. I have a hopeful excited faith this week will bring a directional answer as to where MY path will lead the next months.

I've heard if you take a domestic pig and drop it in the woods it only takes a matter of weeks for it to return to a primal feral state. Pretty impressive I think, but I have noticed my threshold of "how long can you be outside before you become wild again" is dramatically shorter. Moments. It only takes me moments of a breeze on my face, into my nostrils, before it is permeating back through my pores; wild. Is it because I am that or want that? Is it because beauty reflects and attracts beauty? Is it possible that this landscape and natural world is so grand and overpowering that it transforms me?

Lastly, I was late to church so I decided to do something different, take this spirituality and make it personal. I sat alone in a quiet dark room where I could hear the worship but see nothing. The hymns were about grace and spirit. The sermon was about what to do when our bubble bursts. The preacher talked about this looming- dare we say- depression the US is spiraling into. My practical side was annoyed with contempt to be job searching in the worst economy of my life. But my dreaming side - was excited. For the same reason my friend Low was excited about a devastating New England ice storm. Something you may not agree with, that I can only explain as - out of deep tragedy, hopelessness, poverty, disillusionment, and darkness something pure simple and real arises. Something that I have learned is the essence of what to strive for during our time on this planet. My time on the AT echoes these principles, but that was chosen. Many people will never CHOOSE to live a life like this. But as it turns out- something else may have chosen for us. Because nation-wide economic depression seems to be settling in, just like a New England ice storm. The sermon continued until this preacher said something -

Bound together we can survive.

everybody here's got somebody to lean on

just like Coldplay said...