"Nero" week and trail blazes

Most of this past week was a long-planned break from the trail to attend a talk by Margaret Atwood (she is brilliant!), a concert by Carl Palmer of ELP fame and maybe the best pure drummer I have ever seen, and the wedding of our close friends’ son who is like a nephew to us. Since I did few miles this week ("nero" is trailspeak for "near zero" miles), this post is a reflection on the idea of a long hike, not on the actuality of one. It may help explain why I am doing this.

My long hike on the AT is a gift to myself. Simultaneously self-indulgent and self-denying. It is one of those “periods between the parentheses” separating my past world focused on career and community from my future world whose focus I hope to discover. It is an opportunity for me to strip life down to its barest bones devoid of nearly everything that comprises so-called normal life. No TV, refrigerator, or microwave. No bed, recliner chair, sofa, or dresser full of clothes. No plumbing. No Internet. No car. No newspaper, mail, or magazines. Yes, really, no plumbing.

But a long hike in the woods isn’t just about sacrifice or escaping the complications of modern life. It’s about finding new riches in the solitude of the trail. It’s about seeing what is in your head and your heart once you rid yourself of the noise and confusion of living in the twenty-first century. It is a process of purging the nonessential until all that is left is the most basic of experiences – walking and living. There, in the quiet, lonely place of your own head, is where the real adventure happens. The cadence of 40,000 steps a day – boots keeping a steady tempo on leaves and rocks and the soft, rhythmic groan of the backpack with each step – pulls you into a kind of Zen state where you exist without desire or confusion, only harmony and clarity. The only decisions you make are where to put your foot and when to stop walking for the day.

Here, where life becomes so unalterably simple, one discovers something amazing – one’s self.  

After only 270 miles on the trail, my mind still wanders from the trail of self-discovery and is pulled back into the tempest of the “real” world. I expect it will take months before I can get through an entire day without some intrusive thoughts of the current dyspeptic state of the world fouling the idyllic forest-world I inhabit now. So my journey of discovery has many miles to go but I already sense it. The white blazes of the AT make sure I am on the right trail and heading in the right direction. The mental trail signs are less reliable and harder to see, but every day on the trail it gets easier to follow them, too.

Mount Katahdin is not the only terminus for this hike.