“Love & Loss”

AT Day 61

Miles Today: 32.45

AT Mile: 1068.2

(Falls Creek, PA)

In the back of my head I’ve known all along that it wouldn’t last forever, or maybe even for very long. That eventually I would have to say goodbye.

Nothing ever truly lasts.

But I didn’t expect that it was going to be this soon, or that it was going to happen today. It had become such a part of my life that I’d forgotten about that thing with impermanence.

Life is like that, and the trail is only a reflection of life itself.

And today is a reminder of the pain of love and loss.

Today I lost the owl feather that I picked up on my second day of the Appalachian Trail. The feather that I almost lost 3 days later at the NOC. And the feather that I’ve carried with me for over a thousand miles since then.

I got my loaner pack from Hyperlite while they repair the shoulder strap on my primary pack, and the chest strap is constructed just a little bit differently. And that’s where I’ve been storing the owl feather. But today at one point I looked down and it was gone. I must have lost it when I was reaching for water, an hour before.

Some time later in the afternoon I asked another hiker if she saw it on trail and she said that she had, and that she’d even had the thought that “maybe it was Wormwood’s feather” but that she hadn’t paid it any further attention.

I could have gone back at that point, but by then, I had almost made my peace with it being gone. It would have been at least 6 miles round trip to go back for it, and even then there was no assurance that it would still be on trail.

So I let it go.

Nothing lasts.

Everything is temporary in the end.

—

I started early to trail this morning, thinking that it was going to be another hot and humid one. It was my first day being up by 5:30am, and to trail before 6. It made breaking 30 miles much easier than starting at 8am, like I had been before Trail Days.

Today is my first 30+ mile day in around a month–since before trail days. It’s one of my highest mile days. I certainly didn’t plan it that way, but here we are.

I’m now out of the state of Maryland and into Penselvania. I have no idea how to spell it. I’ll have time to figure it out.

Saw bear tracks in the mud this morning. Fresh.

It rained hard for a short time this morning too, but not for long. Mostly this morning it was just thick fog. Then, as it warmed up, you could see the water hanging in the air. It felt thick.

Surprisingly there was a light breeze to blow the humidity out by afternoon. And that stopped things from becoming intollerable.

For much of today I hiked with a guy I met back at Pearisburg. His name is Rorshock. We’ve met a couple of times, and he doesn’t do as big of miles, but today he kept up very well. Having the company was nice. It made the miles pass much faster, compared to my early morning miles today. Those early miles today were hard. I skipped coffee until 10am, but before that I was really dragging ass.

There was a half of a deer fawn in the trail today. It was a grusome scene. Best I can guess is that it was either a coyote or a bobcat that killed it. It looked fresh. It was disturbing.

—

My heart wandered just as far as my feet today. I try to remember in the days following a weekend like we just had, that my thoughts aren’t all to be trusted. Especially those that are less productive sometimes destructive.

There was maybe a little bit of that today. Weight on the soul, I’ll call it. I could hear something similar when I talked briefly with Boots on the phone in the afternoon.

But I’m sure the distance and reflecting on the time it’ll be before we see one another again weighs on both of us. As do many things, no doubt.

Life and love are funny. They both circle and play with the idea of loss.

I’m heartbroken that I’ve lost some of the things that I’ve lost. Losing that feather made me choke up and I thought for a moment that I was going to cry.

But nothing lasts.

“Nothing lasts, but nothing is lost.”

Wormwood.