Dear Trail Friends,
I am sitting in my tent in the pre-dawn dark with my headlamp on. I have just finished "first breakfast." It is amazing how I wake up often thinking "isn't it 4am yet? Isn't it time to get up?" Every morning on the trail, I am like a little child on Christmas morning. For someone who has wrestled lifelong with a tendency toward depression, what a revelation to discover that every day can feel like a new wonderful present just waiting to be unwrapped.
My headlamp is so bright! I had new batteries in my last resupply box, and had not yet used the ones I had. So I changed the batteries, kept one set of spares and put the rest into the "hiker box" (where we leave things other hikers might use). I didn't realize how much my headlamp had dimmed as the battery aged. From now on I think I will change it every 2-3 weeks.
Despite my breakthrough discovery that I could manage the anxiety and live spontaneously with regard to tentsite, I have already checked on tentsites listed in the app and decided to stay at a county campground with coin-operated showers. What a treat to have a shower just 2 days into my hike. And although I can handle the anxiety of spontaneity, I'm not sure I really want to!
Later: here I am in my tent and, as so often happens, the trail brought some surprises. But first:
Photo 1: the dawn sky as I began my hike.
Photo 2: Noticing how much labor has gone into building and maintaining this trail. Wondering who did the work, and silently thanking them. Wishing, when I walk through the "trail" of my ordinary civilized life, I could be this keenly aware of how the work of others makes my walk possible, and feel as grateful.
Photo 3: coming up out of thick woods into this clearing and seeing not only mountains and a lake and an expansive view, but also civilization, I was surprised (and touched) that I was moved (in a physical way, as I am so often by the natural world) by its visible presence. Also realized it explained my having been able to get a cell signal and briefly talk with Chris.
Photo 4: I wish this photo conveyed the movement in the original. This field of bent over gold grass had a look of water, fluid movement, flowing around the rocks. It reminded me of Japanese gardens in which the sand seems to flow around the rocks. This gold grass fluidity is my choice for Bonnie's wave today.
Photo 5. This remarkable family turned my day topsy turvey. (This was the big surprise on the trail for today). We met fairly early and kept playing leap frog (they walk faster than I do, but I would pass them during their breaks, as they also passed me during mine. ) I was very moved that the boys remembered my name (I didn't even try to remember all six names) and greeted me. So I decided if I saw them again I would take a photo and write down all the names.
Then I overtook them (they must have just gotten up from a break) and I thought they were stopping for water soon (and so a photo opp) and I struggled to keep up with them. The older boy kept turning and talking to me, as they both had done earlier, and I thought I sensed, a longing for a woman's attention and witnessing. I thought they might be missing their mother. I was struggling so hard to keep up with them I didn't realize I missed the turn off to my campground until we were past it. You probably know I hate to backtrack.
So forward I went, looking for a tentsite in an area where the apps do not mention any -- and getting more and more anxious. I finally found a slightly sloped area that I could clear of branches and use.
As I walked in search of a campsite, I thought about how I had lost my own hike, in a way, my own plan, and I realized that what I took to be compassion for the boys' possible need for substitute-mothering attention was actually my need to be needed by a child. My own deep wound around not being a mother, and a sense of having messed up the substitute relationships in which I explored nurturing others: therapy, being an aunt, grandmother, mentor to young people. It's an area in which I can be harshly critical of myself, can see myself as "not enough," (and in fact as defective and undeserving). So, how interesting to see how, when that archetypal mother wound was touched, I totally lost track of my hike.
All that aside, this is a charming family, and their goal is to hike all of the Oregon PCT in 30 days. The dogs are all in some sense rescue dogs, troubled or neglected dogs with no adoption options, whom they have taken into their home and family (and now, into their hike.)
Says Dad, trail name "Happy,":
"It wouldn't be the same hike without the dogs. They are such wonderful companions."
The older brother is "Commando," the younger "Water Boy." The dogs from left to right are Houdini May (who was feral up until just a few months ago when they adopted her), Shoeless Joe, and Floppy Gus.
If you fall in love with this family's photo, you can visit their blog at
longdogwalk.com. (Hope I got that right). Water Boy kept showing me his photos -- they are excellent.
So that's all for now. Happy Trails to you til we meet again.
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