“Lonely Heart; Busy Town”

AT Day 35

Miles: 0 (Somewhere between 7-12 walking around town and the camping area today)

Total Miles: 661.87

(Damascus Library)

There’s always an abundance of time to think on trail. So why I should feel like I’ve been especially contemplative these last few days is beyond me… Maybe because there haven’t been so many miles. Because I’ve had time to think about something other than how much farther I still have to walk today. Because I’ve been well fed and fairly well slept. I’m rested, and so I have time for my mind to wander.

I have been thinking that I want to change the way that I’m hiking. Not in the way that I’m literally walking; not the step, step, step part. But the way that I’m going through the days.

I want to slow my daily miles. I want to spend more time at the shelters. But I also don’t feel like I quite know how to do that. Not pretending that should make sense. I’m just trying to get a feeling down on the page.

I’ve felt notably isolated and alone since the beginning of the Appalachain Trail. But I have mostly been okay with that feeling. It’s starting to get to me though. Likely because there are so many people on trail, and I meet so many of them. But I am not connecting with any of them. I am not feeling a bond with any of them. I am not feeling like any of them will be there for maybe a mile or two. I have not felt like I would be in their lives for any longer, and for the most part that’s come to fruition.

I’ve found myself pushing through miles to get through this group of people that I met today, hoping that the people I meet tomorrow will be the ones who I get to know. That doesn’t come to fruition, but it’s my thinking.

I see people making incredible connections with one another. That’s been the case since Day 1, but at this point there are clear “Trail Families” of hikers. They’re well established and clearly close. It leads me to feel greater discomfort in not having that in my own life. I don’t mean for that to be a statement that extends beyond the trail itself, but it certainly does.

The trail has been a magnification of the issues that I’ve had in my personal life these last five, or ten, or twenty, or forty years. I’ve felt extremely isolated and alone, but for a 4-year stint that ended in 2023. That was 18 months ago. I’ve been trying to find a feeling of tribe or belonging since then. I have not found that feeling.

I am not finding that feeling on the Applachain Trail.

The people that I meet here are nice. I like the time that I’ve spent with some of them.

But there is a problem that I’m starting to see in socializing with long distance hikers, like I meet out here. We all spend too much time by ourselves. We have too much time to think about the reasons that led us out here, what we’re trying to make of ourselves, or the story that we think we’re living out. Maybe that’s just a description of being a human being, but on trail it’s magnified. We have too much time to think about these things. So I’m observing that by the time I meet another hiker, they have a whole autobiography of stories that they want to tell me, in which they’re the lead character, and surly by the end they’ll have everything figured out.

I feel that way too, I confess.

But in light of observing how common a trait this is, I’ve been quieting down and listening. That started before the trail. I’ll notice when someone has A LOT to say, and I’ll just shut up. You can learn a lot about someone this way. Not in what they tell you necessarally, but in how they tell it. I’m meeting a lot of people who have these big long stories, and I’ll ask questions, and I’ll engage, but they’ll show no curiosity towards me whatsoever.

They want to talk.

But they just want to talk about themselves.

Any irony in my writing this in a trail journal that’s all about myself?

Probably… but I hope that I’m at least doing what I can to avoid the sin of hypocracy.

I took a shuttle into Damascus this morning from about 2 hours north of here, and the shuttle driver apologized several times about having drank too much coffee and being too “worked up.” She told me all about herself, her life, and her hikes. I asked questions about the other details. But at the end, after driving together for 2 hours, she still doesn’t know what I do for a living. I told her two or three times where I lived, and every time she misremembered. I understood that it was my job in the conversation to be the listener, and not the talker. And I’m getting that feeling a whole lot with hikers I’m meeting on trail.

This one guy today in Damascus came up to me and started talking. I told him that we’d met and he apologized for forgetting, told me that he smokes too much pot. I told him all the details about himself that I could remember from our first time meeting, so that he knew he didn’t need to tell me all about it again; he could save that for someone else.

Then I reminded him that I had been stoned and on mushrooms when we met. That I’d bounced around the stump he was sitting on, and that’s when he remembered. He told me, “Damn, you were going so fast that day when you hiked by.”

I told him, “Yeah–I probably broke 30 miles that day; you were trying to slow me down to 10, and you probably would have got me too if I hadn’t left.”

He chuckled, but mostly because he didn’t seem to comprehend that I was sort of poking fun at him.

I’m at Damascus Trail Days now, and I can tell that in the coming days this is going to build into quite a scene. It’s going to be a f*cking 3-day rave. For the record, I am sort of looking forward to at least some of the debauchery . But I want to get away from it after I’m through. I don’t want to linger in this mess too long. In a perfect world I’ll probably spend tomorrow (Friday) with the gear vendors and spend some serious time deciding whether I’m going to invest into a new tent and ultra lite trail quilt. Then tomorrow night and Saturday I can dip my toes into heathen-mode, join in the festivities, dance as much as I feel the need for, and then get the f*uck out before everyone starts to come down or find their hangovers.

Shouldn’t be too challenging an agenda.

I have a shuttle back to Pearisburg scheduled on Sunday morning. I have the option of staying longer (there are some presentations and what-not on Sunday that I may or may not want to attend), or heading directly back to trail after that. I expect that I’ll be back where I left off from the AT on Sunday around noon. I already have my food and resupply all taken care of.

Oh–that rip in my sleeping bag; I’ve got the gear repair people taking a look at that right now. This is such a weird event; it’s a rave on one hand, but then a massive long-distance hiking gear festival on the other. All the major gear distributors are here setting up. And I’ve already really enjoyed talking to the Hyperlite people.

So there’s good in all this mess. But man… it’s impossible to ignore how much more isolated I feel as a solo person in a group of 15,000 people than I do when I’m just solo, out in the woods by myself.

I feel like this one’s been a rant.

Don’t mean for it to be that.

I still count the blessings.

I’m still enjoying the little moments in the day.

I’m still liking the miles.

I’m still enjoying when I get to eat an entire bag of Lucky Charms while hiking down trail.

There are good parts in it.

But as a whole, this trail is hard on my heart, my spirit, and my soul.

Wormwood.

Longing for something more…