Appalachian Trail, Part 8

Among gentle gods

Something is off today. My head throbs, my belly aches, and I’m feverish. My heart beats irregularly as I push ahead to FarOut’s next random landmark. Some electric lines, check. A tiny campsite, made it. A so-called scenic view, done. None are much of anything except proof that hours are passing and miles are stacking up. And today, even though I feel like microwaved crap, the day is amounting to one of my biggest days yet. It’s amazing what happens when I’m focused on something else besides time and distance.

Meanwhile, my malaise triggers a full tilt of hypochondria. I worry my heart might give out and leave me lifeless. That I caught norovirus at the last hostel. Or perhaps I’m having another panic attack—which, though it’s a new sensation in my life, has become commonplace since my dad died. Now, every time I feel the familiar tunneling vision and racing heartbeat, I assume I’m moments from death. It always dissipates, but I’m left flooded by a crushing sense of guilt—Fuck…I wish I had been a better person.

Maybe I’m just dehydrated. Or tired. But I could be having a stroke. Because after all, everything smells funny. And isn’t that a symptom of stroke? The forest smells like frying butter. Like a pile of leaves that’s gone too long without bagging. Like a hundred thousand ripe Christmas trees. Like that grey-brown candle my grandma burned during family gatherings. Maybe all these olfactory hallucinations are the precursor to me permanently falling out. Maybe these moments are my last.

The timing of my arrival at Mt. Algo shelter couldn’t be better. I throw off my pack and race to the mouldering privy. Just as I get my pants down, a woodpecker knocks its beak on the tin roof. The banging startles me and I jerk backwards and slam my lower legs and ankled shorts onto an orange Home Depot bucket filled with broken sticks and leaves.

Mouldering privy on the AT

My stop here is an emergency, and not the first of the day. Besides everything else that’s causing me duress, this morning my guts are in turmoil. I wonder if yesterday’s gluttonous stop at Bear Mountain Inn is partially to blame. It stands to reason that after weeks of simple foods, my sudden indulgence of mozzarella sticks, a loaded hotdog, a roast beef sandwich, three coconut waters, a double shot of expresso, and a slice of double chocolate cake simply was too much. I am duly poisoned by my vices.

The bird’s banging continues as my stomach swirls and I bob my head to the beat. The tempo is hard and fast, and for a moment I’m back at Club 46, a dance club I frequented while I was stationed in central Germany. I’d taxi there decked out in a pair of tightly-tapered Lee Cavariccis, a heavily starched button-up, a large silver cross necklace, and heavy loop earrings. I grew my hair to fit in with the locals—and though its length was surely out of regulation, I was too good a soldier for my superiors to make a stink. Soldier by day, club kid by night.

Pre-gaming in the barracks (1991)

Upon entry to 46, the resonant bass of the popular song, “Who…is…Elvis?” would ripple through my bones, adding forceful beats to my already anxious heart. The soundscape would compromise my future eardrums, but my present sensibility cared little about my tomorrows. I only wanted to drink too much and dance fitfully, usually alone, until my ironed prim was doused in wringable sweat.

Those were good times, really good times—and I’d never have guessed that some 35 years later a midday stomach ache and the techno tapping of a wily, pileated woodpecker would teleport me so readily back to them.

The rapping stops, and the woodpecker launches from the outhouse with a soft scratch and snappy wing flap. Its departure underscores an ensuing hush—an empty fullness only these woods can offer. With its leave, the culprit to my discomfort quits too.

I return to my pack and find it face down in the dirt. As soon as I make the decision to stay the night here, I’m reenergized. And though my body feels whole again, the preceding hours are suddenly not mine. To recall them is to summon someone else’s story. Like remembering something I read about or watched from afar.

I set up my tent and, because the bugs are so bad, immediately sequester myself inside. I lay down on my bedroll and stare at mosquito shadows until the sun sets. When it does, I wonder, How could I have possibly covered more than 30 miles today?

Out here, the days often pass inexplicably. I wake up, follow my morning routine, set out walking, and then in a blink I am many, many miles from where I started, down on my hands and knees, feeling out another tent-sized square of earth. Is this a good place for my tent? Is this?

I regularly miss the whole of the day and I can’t even claim to have been distracted. I didn't spend the day contemplating anything in particular—not my job, my finances, my relationships, my future. I didn't consider any big ideas or current political atrocities, nor did I marvel at the trail's ancient geography. I did sing along to the Iggy Pop song reeling through my head—Candy Candy Candy I can’t let you go—and today, Phil Collins’s “Another Day in Paradise.” But these musical interludes are always short lived. Just poetic bursts of brainwaves that hint to what’s happening in my subconscious.

Nothing, however, coherently answers the question, Where has all the the time gone?

Before I fall asleep, I thank the trail for healing me. I trust that it’s giving me what I need, even though sometimes what it gives is not what I want. Of course I don’t want to feel sick, or be forced to slow down because of weather, or swat incessantly at black flies, or cross paths with that one guy who can’t stop talking about his trail exploits. But I do trust these moments are necessary—a sort of trail oxygen. I don’t understand why they happen, but I trust they are propelling me towards a fuller life.

In this way, walking a long trail requires a certain degree of faith. It asks me to believe that it knows better than me. That it has my best interest in mind. And even as I type “it” referring to the trail, I am keenly aware that this “it” is actually me. I was reared to believe that God is something found externally and ethereally—the omniscient bearded man judging me from his compound in the clouds. But I no longer see it this way. I now believe that each of us, innately, are this higher power. We walk daily among saints. Among gentle gods. Pay attention and they will change your life.

A few trail saints

My existence, here or anywhere, is an ongoing conversation with the divine. Each step a release that gives my being over to something bigger. Call it God or spirit or nature or whatever. But also call it me, or us—because when we move through life with this sort of letting go, this trust, we elevate into more authentic versions of ourselves.

I walk because I like it. I am thrilled by intense physical effort and the possibility of covering massive distances on my own two feet. But I also walk for bigger reasons. I walk to become a more compassionate, more tender, more willing and open version of me.

Onward