Week 2

Week 2 Friday- Wed

Three-Toed Mona here! Coming at ya with week two. Community and connection seem to be the themes of these last few days......plus a little black bear and snake sex action, but I'll get to that stuff later.

First, let me just say that I have learned so many new tricks of the hiking trade, and I have beyond surprised myself with how well I have adapted to the hiker world. I make sure to tell all fellow hikers I meet that I am brand new to this whole backpacking thing so that they will tell me all their little secrets about how to survive the great outdoors. Of course I will have to change my tune soon, as I have almost backpacked over 150M, and I am starting to not need so much advise. I have learned how to hang my food sack (both with the AT & PCT method), filter water, properly stake my tent, make ramen bombs (hiker hunger is real!), and all sorts of other post-zombie apocalypse skills. Yes, there is rhyme and reason to all hiker rituals and it is through connection within this community that I have been able to master many of them and make it this far.

Like recovery, hiking is something you do by yourself. It's work, it's ritualistic, and it's a challenge. Every step is on you and only you, but completing the miles and climbs with a few crazy cohorts support and suggestions changes the dynamics of the work completely. I know from my experience in life and sobriety that the sweet harmony of working alone together has made miracles happen, and it seems to be happening on the trail for me as well. 

As I hit the trail out of Marion over the weekend, I ran into a few faces I had recognized from the Virginia Creeper Trail and the Baptist hiker feed I attended the previous week. The three hikers were named Wolf-dog, Spills, and Wind-Fall. They were slack packing to Atkins and had left their buddy, Two-Sticks, at their hotel room for the day. He was suffering some foot ailments due to the chronic rain. We did 15M that day and by the end of our hike that day, they had invited me to hitch back with them to town and stay in their hotel room that night. Seeing as I was headed for a campsite 3M past Atkins with barely an hour of light left, I took them up on the offer. This hiker family of four were truly a gift to stumble upon. They had been hiking together since the Smokies, and as I sat their that night with them at a local Mexican restaurant in Atkins, I felt as if I were sitting with friends I had known for years. The conversations, the jokes, everything about them felt so familiar. I think when people have a common thread, like say recovery, or wanting to hike 2,189M, there is this phenomenon that occurs. The deepest bonds can develop instantly because you get that person right off the bat and instant empathy and understanding manifests. We couldn't have all been more different. An attorney, a jeweler, a military man, a teacher and me, all from different cities and backgrounds.....but we got each other's crazy. We were family. 

For the past five days we have been hiking together as a team, with the exception of one night when I traveled too far ahead and managed to get myself stuck under a pavilion alone (oops). I know I probably won't walk the whole trail with this group. Like I said, hiking is something you do all by yourself, but like in my recovery, I will work it alone and reach out when I need to reach out. I think in the beginning, I will need the group the most. I know I did in sobriety. That was probably one of my biggest keys to early success in early sobriety was immersing myself fully into a community of people in recovery. I worked with them, I went to group with them, and eventually found a group of them at school to be around almost constantly. I plan to do the same during my early weeks on the trail, simply because I know it works for me. If I go out solo later, so be it. I'm sure I will be ready. The saying on the AT is "hike your own hike", and this group won't always stay together, but I will enjoy the time I share with this hiker family as long as I lasts, and I will never forget these connections I have made with them on and off the trail. Today I hit my highest mileage at 18.9 M. One of my cohorts Wolf-dog and I ended up hiking alone together for most of the day. We talked about pretty much everything and anything to make the miles pass. Music, food, family, friends, places we had traveled to in the past, and places we wanted to go one day. He asked me a lot about psychology and I hounded him about the ins and outs of the jewelry business. After nearly 19M, we had pretty much said it all, but toward the end of the day we got into a conversation about relationships. He asked me about marriage and my husband and how the details our early days of being together played out (I think he was collecting tips for he and his girlfriend back home). I spent the next few miles telling my love story, from the night Wes and I met all the way up until our wedding.

As I got through explaining how our ceremony was conducted by our best friend Pat (the same guy Wes was with the night we met), I started to get a little emotional. I explained to Wolf-dog that my friend Pat had always talked about hiking the AT, and how he had past away a few years back due to an accident with drugs. Wolf-dog stopped, turned around, and said "Dude, that's my real name, Pat." 

In that moment, I found tears welling up and goose bumps on my arms. I looked straight into the bright blue eyes of the bearded, red-cheeked, Irish kid in front of me, and for a second, I swear my friend Pat was channeling through this person. I don't believe in spirits, or reincarnation, or any of that crap, but for a second, in the middle of those woods today, I saw my friend, and he was smiling back at me. This moment gives me chills just recounting it silently. It also invigorates me to continue this journey on the trail, and in recovery, for all of those who can't, and for all of those that couldn't. Tonight, my hiker family of  six (we picked up a new friend Howdy) had dinner together by a fire we made.

Two-sticks, who has a small trail guitar, played music while we all ate our dinners of packaged tuna, ramen, summer sausage, tortilla and other assorted fry goods. As the night grew darker, I sat there with a full belly and tired body by the fire, and I looked up at the stars with absolutely nothing on my mind. It was a moment of pure serenity. I felt that I was right where I needed to be in that moment, and I was all there at the time. No bills, or deadlines, or mile marks, or anything else to cloud my thinking. For the first time in a long time, I was just being present. 

Before starting the trail, I was afraid of these moments occurring. I was afraid of what might pop up in my mind when I didn't have the distraction of two jobs, full-time school, bills, etc. I was afraid I might go crazy, or give up, or that my mind would go to a place where it shouldn't, but none of that happened. I just sat in the bliss of a beautiful starlit sky, and all I could think was, "What a strange and wonderful world we live in. Life is good."

Wed-Friday Oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ I met an older man named Juice today. Oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ was his gift to me. He stopped for a smoke and sat next to me as I was sitting next to a stream. We got to talking, as hikers tend to do on our many stops throughout the day. Juice was from Brooklyn. He had two daughters, one of which worked in the same school district as my sister once did in Jacksonville, FL (small world). Juice had lived an interesting life. Currently retired, he worked in the psych ward of a juvenile detention center in New York, and later in computers. He had also been a devout Buddhist for most of his life, studying under teachers near and far... like really far...like Tibet far. I told him I was a big meditation connoisseur, but I had trouble with truly reaching a meditative state and being present. I called myself a bit of a "future tripper".He chuckled and asked me if I realized that I was currently being totally present in a five-month long moving meditation.

I shrugged my shoulders and laughed back. As we were finishing up our small talk, Juice says to me "Oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ" . I asked him what it meant. He said, "A teacher of mine told me that if you hear this phrase once if your life, you will experience true enlightenment. It was the first thing I said to both of my children when they were born." He laughed. "Now I mostly just find myself saying it to dogs or babies when I see them." He pointed to his right forearm, and I noticed the inscription tattooed along the edge of his wrist. As we parted ways, I found myself facing a 1.75M climb up a 4,000 ft. elevation. I whispered Oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ the whole way up. 

Do yourself a favor. Look up the song You'll Never Walk Alone (instrumental version) by Nina Simone. Put on headphones, close your eyes, and imagine you are are walking under a canopy of rhododendrons just about to bloom, with soft sunlight and a light breeze hitting your face. This is what I experienced as I went .3 M off the trail to visit Dismal Falls yesterday. 

 I get to experience moments like these all the time on the trail, at least once a day if not more. It is what makes the hard miles in between these moments worth the struggle. I have hiker knee so bad that I will need to get a brace in the next town. I have dozens of blisters, and smell like deaths door, but the work is worth it. I know this to be true of my hike, just like it has been true for my sobriety. When people who don't live in sobriety ask me why I don't drink, or why I go to all the trouble I do to stay active in the community, I tell them that the moments I get to experience when I am active in recovery are rewarding in a way that no drink or drug could be. You cannot understand unless you experience it. I say the same to people who are suffering from addiction who can't seem to get sober. When they ask me how I do it, I tell them it's hard work and you have to do it everyday, but it's so much easier than what you have to go through when your using, and you get to experience a little bit of peace everyday that you do it. 

Lastly, I will tell you that the past few days have been full of wildlife. I saw my first black bear, and as I was leaving the falls yesterday, I stumbled upon two 5ft. long black snakes (not poisonous) mating with each other. Yummy! Everyday I get to see a new plant or insect or animal that allows me to experience nature in a way that I never have before. I look forward to more of these experiences as the trail continues.

Pearisburg, VA is where I call home tonight! It's Friday night, and the crew and I are about to hit an AYCE (all you can eat) Chinese buffet. We rolled into town about 8AM, putting my sweet swollen feet at 164.2 M hiked thus far. I am looking forward to a day of relaxing by the motel pool and resting my poor knees. Tomorrow it's back to the trail!