The NOC-a-NOC

Yes friends, your humble narrator and backpacking shenanigan on two left feet has made it to the Nantahala Outdoor Center in Bryson City, NC.

He, I, was culinarily underprepared leaving Jiveawassee in order to save on weight...you know, I had the right materials, even skills, to cook food, but not enough raw material...

And so, last night at 5:30 when I descended the 5,000 feet from the outstanding southern Nantahala Wilderness and was about to pitch camp and I realized the burger I longed for all week was only a mile away, I booked it to the restaurant and got me one with barbecue sauce and onion rings, oh Lord! And don't forget a brownie sundae for desert--YES! to fill my belly before I stumbled upon an open field by the river to cowboy camp at for the night under the stars. Yes, I live the life of a hobo with a credit card who only gets to use it once a week.

The weather has been outstanding, the views super-natural, yas, and the hiking difficult but rewarding. Pulled 4 sixteen-mile days in a row for that burger, and happy to be taking it easy up through the Smokies. I went into the outfitters here to find some knee braces and look! There were 2 for free right in the hiker box people, and yes, the trail provides, and yes my friends, the trail does provide.

Each morning the group I've been hiking with and myself, the self-titled THE FUN PATROL PLUS (replete with bananagrams, harmonicas, and hackysacks), greets the day in a circle via stretching, mindfulness exercises, meditation, prayers and blessings for the day, and self-love. Then the hike begins. Mornings I find myself talking and laughing with the group, playing games and takin it easy. After lunch I get pensive, almost brooding, and choose to hike ahead alone.

I still cannot fully account for this midday shift, but here are some cognitive reflections based off of raw emotion:

All winter, I anxiously awaited my departure. And now, sometimes my body hurts. My heart hurts. Sometimes I miss home desperately. Sometimes I feel God's sunrays and mountains penetrate me so deeply that I cry--for overwhelming gratitude, sheer loneliness, fear of the magnitude of the world without and within, or even just happiness to be alive. I am thinking, learning, growing. And sometimes it hurts, friends. Sometimes I need solitude, and sometimes I can't stand it. I am still getting my bearings out here. Still learning how to be, if you will. If I could figure out how to upload pictures to this thing, I'd first show you the view from Wayah Bald...but second I'd show you the first struggling spring trillium--beautiful, solitary, growing, awaiting, unsure, just learning how to be--cause that is me.

The evenings filled with campfires and musical revelry seem to wash away the day's trials, and even though it's cold at night, I've learned how to keep warm til daybreak.

The trail flows up and down. People come and go. Mountains and storms rise and fall, trees bow in reverence, nourishing streams flow. Today, after I bathe in the river, I think I'm gonna go hiking, and maybe tomorrow, I'll do the same.

Onward to Fontana Dam, with love, wistfulness, and all the imperfections, heartaches, and triumphs in between.