“Interdependence”

AT Day 77

Miles Today: 26.13

AT Mile: 1404.2

(Seven Lakes Drive [tent])

We’re onto New York now.

I stood for a while this morning, with water from a lake outlet flowing between my legs, keeping dry by placing my feet on two rocks at opposite sides of the stream.

New York is full of lakes, like none of the other states that I’ve seen on trail.

I am very very tired as I write this. It will be short.

A lot of the the lakes that I’ve hiked past in New York have been dark water lakes. I don’t know exactly what it’s from–an algae or something.

The thought occurred to me that lakes are big and beautiful things, but they do not last. They become rivers. Then rivers become something larger too. Some of the lake outlets around here flow into other lakes, which then flow into other rivers. Lakes becoming rivers becoming lakes becoming rivers.

It struck me that there was a poetic beauty somewhere in the thought. A better writer would put words to the metaphor better than I’ll hope achieve here. But maybe after some time, miles, mushrooms, and context.

I was on a little bit of mushrooms as I stood there, the dark water from one of the lakes flowing between my legs as river-outlet. Maybe I was thinking about it too deeply and working too hard to make something out of what was really nothing.

But it sat there with me for more than the passing moment. That these lakes are such big and grand and beautiful things–these massive bodies of water. But the water that makes those lakes doesn’t hold its form; it eventually all flows out into this little outlet, which itself was so small that I could bridge its entirety by standing at a wide stance, facing upstream towards the lake that this flowing water had been up until now.

Here it wasn’t a lake anymore though. It was this little, insignificant flowing stream.

But just down the way, it flowed into another large lake–just as big and just as magnificent as the lake that I was facing upstream towards.

A better writer would put it to words better…

Someday I might figure out how to do the same.

For now, the crude idea was enough: Our lives are like these dark lakes and rivers–almost unrecognizable from the form we used to be and the things that we used to hold so dear; oscillating between amazing and insignificant chapters of our lives, some big and grand while others are small-flowing and insignificant. But moments resolving into smaller things, which then allow for us to become our next thing in life.

I hope to reform into something bigger than I was after this trail is over and done. I hope to be like that lake outlet that flowed between my legs for a moment today.

—

Plinko and I have continued to hike together, although it’s well known and stated that he’d be far and ahead of here if he didn’t enjoy the company as well. We do have quite a lot in common. Funny though–we almost never hike together. We only take breaks and camp together. We talk sometimes, but most of the time it’s quiet between us. Our conversations are intermittent and sometimes spaced out.

One thing we have talked a lot about has been spirituality and philosophy. He’s been a bridge for my introduction to Taoism–something I’ve been peripherally interested in for some time now but have never explored this deeply until the AT and hiking with Plinko.

I thought about it some today, how even having a hiking partner is a sort of relationship that necessitates sacrifices, like any other relationship. I thought about that a lot today, in fact.

I’ve spent so much time alone in this chapter of my life, and that time alone has almost killed me. It’s been everything I could hold sometimes. It’s been more than I thought that I could hold other times.

That time alone has been the thing that scares me more than anything else in the world. And no doubt that’s why this chapter has been so difficult.

Only recently have I started to bring people back into my life, and the way that I’ve felt towards that company has been curious.

I’ve already said that I enjoy the hike with Plinko, and I mean that fully. I get the feeling that we both appreciate one anothers’ company tremendously. But then I feel some guilt about slowing him down. I feel responsibility to keep my milage up… to prove something? So I don’t disappoint or let him down? To meet him there? I’m not exactly sure what… But there is a burden that feels like it comes with companionship.

Within it there might even be something akin to resentment. Resentment that I can be seen for my most naked, real, and no-bullshit version of myself. Resentment that I’m seen for who I probably really am, including the parts that I’m ashamed of. Resentment that someone could be there to see my weaknesses, my flaws, my dents and scars.

Thru hikes do this thing where they reduce you down to the essence of who you really are, I think. All the bullshit falls off after a thousand or fifteen hundred miles. You can’t worry about your hair, how you’re dressed, whether you’re giving off the best impression, and all of that kind of thing. It all falls away in the heat, the pain, the discomforts, and the stresses of the trail. Then, what’s left is the version of you that exists underneath it all.

And it’s been hard hiking with Plinko and acknowledging that another human being is going to see me for what I really am. I wonder if I may not be ready for that. I wonder if I’m still trying to present something to the world that is above what I really am.

Here… I’ll say it differently and most honestly: I’m scared for someone to see me for who I really am because at my core I’m still ashamed of who I really am.

At my core I still feel weak and defenseless.

It’s hard for me to accept that part of myself. And harder still to conceive of letting someone else see it in me.

—

It’s hard not to reflect those same questions as I walk long miles in the heat and think through a relationship that’s been developing with Boots. Is interconnectedness with another human being something that I’m ready for right now? Is it something we’re ever ready for? Do these feelings of judgement and inadequacy ever go away? And how do we willingly let go of the bullshit after being let down and hurt for doing it so many times in the past?

I’m sorry if this one is all too heady… I’ve had a lot of miles to think lately.

—

I’m becoming far too tired and I need to sleep.

I’m immeasurably excited to see Boots tomorrow afternoon. Hemlock will be dropping her off at around 2 or 3pm and we’ll hike together with Plinko for a day and a half before then coming off trial for a Zero and a Nero at Hemlock’s Place in CT.

Wormwood