Dear Trail Friends
The day began badly with a wrong turn first thing in the morning, a long steep descent of almost s mile and then climbing back again. I forgot my rule to always check gps when I pass a crossroads, no matter how clearly marked I think it is. I have an uncanny ability to choose the wrong direction. In this case, the sign said PCT with an arrow to the left, and something creek, with an arrow to the right. But in the early morning light these signs with the arrows and letters carved into the wood are fairly subtle. I only saw the arrow to the right and just assumed the PCT and creek were in the same direction. On the way back I saw a lovely light blue bird from a distance, and decided that if I got to see it up close it would be worth the entire detour. I didn't though. 😟
I've been asking for dreams to continue to deepen my understanding of this as pilgrimage. In particular I've been asking the dream-maker if my imagined conversation with her was a good fit or needed correcting, and just for more connection with her in relation to the trail as pilgrimage. I woke with two fragments of a fading dream: I'm with a man and just realizing how very much in love with him I am feeling and what a special wonderful feeling it is. He says "I love you too. " I protest that I hadn't said anything. He says " I knew what you were thinking. ". The other fragment is about losing the key (one of those card-keys you get at motels).
The first scene associated to my imaginary conversation with the dream-maker in which she clearly loved Mary a lot but was not nearly as fond of River. "I love you too" meaning both "I love you as you also love me" and " I love you also, in addition to Mary." I took this as a response to my request to correct or clarify anything I got wrong in the imagined conversation. As I walked today, I thought of the "in love" feeling and how often I feel it in relation to what I see and experience on the trail, both the natural world and the people. And how my connection with the world of dreams and imagination -- though an inner not outer world, has that same quality of "in love." I liked that the figure was male instead of female as I imagined. That seemed playful on the part of the dream-maker, and a reminder that he-she-it is a mysterious "other." It also reminds me of a young person I met on the trail. This young person had to my sensibility the voice and bearing of a female, but the beard of a male. (He did not seem at all like a gay man.) I speculated he might be a trans-man, and then wondered if I wrote about it (and attitudes about gender and transgender and how profoundly they have changed in my lifetime, and reflecting on what did it mean to be female when I was, like this young man, just coming of age, and what does it mean now?) if I would somehow be violating his privacy. Then I thought that I might be projecting shame and hiding from an earlier generation on someone who might feel entirely differently. But it did bring up a vague discomfort with the switch from email to blog. The email felt like a cozy space where I could talk with intimate and supportive friends. When I think of the blog, it feels more exposed and public, I don't feel secure my email readers will be willing to move into this new setting.
Which leads to the second image, the lost key to a room. My first association was to Bobaroo, my blog guru whose off-trail name is Zimmerman (I had asked for his address so I could send a thank you note when I finish the trail). Zimmerman, he said, was German for room, so it probably meant carpenter or room-builder. Room also associated to Virginia Woolf and A Room of One's Own--which took me in quite a different direction, thinking about not having a space anymore fully my own, designed and shaped by my choices and taste, like my office was. And yet feeling sad when I go to the office, in a way it feels so empty, it once held so much love. And it reminded me of the casket without a body and I thought that Mary is not the only dead self I need to honor and mourn. There is also my therapist self.
But the stronger association for me at this moment is with my writing room. The email container, the presence of email readers I could feel cheering me on and genuinely interested in my story -- now with the blog I feel out there alone. Uncertain if anyone is listening -- or imagining someone stumbling on the blog and being critical of it because it is "all about River" and not enough about the trail.
So I think the lost key is the lost trust and expectancy that the moment I start to write I am surrounded by a circle of trail Angels, listeners, supporters, witnesses-- generous with their blessing. Wish I could just go to the motel office and ask that nice Indian woman (from the motel in Dunsmuir, my most recent experience with one of those card-keys) if she would make me a new card-key.
Meanwhile, even though I feel a bit exposed and lonely and insure that the connection between me and my trail angel readers will carry over from email to blog, still I plan to keep writing. I suppose that is part of what pilgrimage is: you lose faith, you keep walking. You lose the trail, you keep walking.
Photo 1. Morning light as I begin my hike just before my wrong turn.
Photo 2. This butterfly stood perfectly still as I brought my iPhone very close. Then I said "thank you" and she flew away. Later on I saw a monarch and later a second monarch. My first monarchs ever on the PCT. right after I wrote yesterday about my childhood memory of carrying the newly emerged butterfly outside perched on my finger and watching it fly away. That image has always been emblematic of transience for me. Love is honoring beauty enough to let it be free. So is the dream-maker orchestrating the images in the outer world as well as the inner world?
Photo 3. Storm clouds. Again today the weather kept switching dramatically between bright almost hot sun and blue sky and vast very dark clouds, cold winds, sense of imminent rain. All day long I was either taking my rain gear off or putting it on or thinking about whether I should be taking it off or putting it on. It started to rain seriously once and I stopped and put my extra, serious rain gear on. Then of course it stopped.
Photo 4. So my feet decided that in this weather they do not especially want to be dipped in an ice cold stream for 10 seconds, or taken out of their shoes and socks to be dried and "aired." Now they want me to lie on my back with my legs against a tree and give them five minutes elevated above my heart. They really really love that. But what surprised me was I loved it too. There I was lying on my back, my legs leaning against a tree, my gaze straight up. This is what I saw that I wouldn't have seen if my feet hadn't insisted on special treatment ( which they more than deserve -- it is no small miracle that they are willing and able to go all these miles, after all the problems they've had. I really do appreciate them a lot. ). By the way, I passed my first 200 miles in this particular hike today. That's 20% of the total if I really get to walk all the way to the Canada border, which I am hoping. (That would make my hike almost exactly 1000 miles, and I would have finished the entire 2650 trail from Mexico to Canada except the short 157 mile section between Quincy and Burney Falls I had to skip when I got the flu. )
Photo 5. I'm the walrus.
Photo 6. Tree, flowers, mountain, trail.
Photo 7. Bonnie's Wave. By the way, Bonnie's tumor has shrunk 85%, a great blessing. Thanks for your prayers, keep them coming.
Thank you -- if anyone is "there" in this new strange blog space--thank you so much for walking with me. The thought of losing the magic of the emails makes me appreciate even more all you and our connection means to me.
River-I'm so glad you moved to the blog and that I found it.
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