The Seductions of Home

My father told me, "Do not be seduced by the comforts of home!" last week when I ventured back into the world for a sniff. 

Seduced, yes--and did I succumb? 

This concept of "the real world." Why do we, as hikers, refer to life off-trail as "the real world?" Hiking the Appalachian Trail is no more or less real than anything else in life--I am not taking a break out here, nor am I returning to something when I reach Katahdin--I am in the midst of a continuous flow, and the trick is to surrender to it. 

I can no longer claim to carry 40 pounds on my back. Some may consider my preoccupation with weight an unhealthy obsession. And yet, when your whole world is on your back and in your eyes, when there is nothing else to be preoccupied with, why not consider weight heaily? Yes--I ditched my sleeping bag. Yes, I cut tags out of shirts. Yes, I walk around camp barefoot. Yes, I am sometimes cold, suddenly clueless about how to properly wash my clothing, and reckoning with a perpetually dirty crust on the bottoms of my feet. And do I regret the lack of these comforts? I honestly do sometimes. But the ease with which I am now gliding generally outweighs any moments of shivering, confusion, or hoof-skin picking.

Last week I saw few people. I vacillated between lonesomeness and elation--wildly. Too wildly (but who's to judge?). I felt whipped around in an ocean of (I can't say emotion). Blah blah blah, the trail provides, but it does. No two ways about it. It just does. 

And attending a Memorial Day celebration yesterday, I couldn't help but feel overwhelmed with grief concerning humanity's preoccupation with war, and afterwards in the car, criss-crossing through America's homogeneity of fast-food chains and strip malls, which I generally so thoughtlessly support (thoughtless due to once-conscious ignore-ance), just about (no, actually) broke down in helpless remorse, guilt, shame, for we as people, who cannot just be kind to each other...

Am I just running away from it all in the woods? What am I currently contributing?

I've stopped checking my bank statement, because it is more laborious to worry about money than spend it. I have boiled my life down to searching for the simplest ways to go about anything. Am I becoming lazy or just efficient? Clear-headed or foolhardy?

Either way, the addition of a small guitar quite nicely compliments my pre-existing harmonica & hackysack conditions, and the smell of this river sure beats the smell of my armpits, and life rolls on as I continue to walk north in style, with or without (or within!) purpose, and striving to act never around but always through love. 

--Boot

 

Foibles, Fables, Faubles

And yes, our travels (and by our I mean we as in we) have brought us into a grassy valley, smelling of magic and wet rhododendrons, in the foothills of Virginia Appalachia, and in this valley, there is a camp, a farm, and 24 thru-hikers. 

I marched them in after 10 days of solid rain, whacking bush, amidst naysayers and doubting Thomases, only to be self-corroborated in what I knew would bring peace, joy, and love to their hearts and mine, and to the valley itself...

Enough of all that. 

We worked together. We grew together. We love each other. And with a quick jaunt home to taste (yet not swallow) it's seductions, it is back to trail life for this Bootsy Bootlegger. 

I don't need a guide book. I don't need a watch. I need: sun. water. food. legs. a heart. a sense of God. 

And thus, I will walk to Maine. 

In, out of, and with love,

Boots

Johnson City, Tennessee--like the song

Life truly is but a song, no? No! Of course not. It isn't a stage either, though we sure do like to play...

Life itself, truly, is far too unpredictable for either such comparisons! And yet, as in a song or a theater, life does seem to flow melodiously, tense and release, through all the plot twists and scene changes...

Ok, enough of this small talk, let's shoot!

It's true that I do not walk south. But driving south is a different story. But ah, but ah, but ah--before we begin to speak of the present, we must first divulge the past.

Leaving Carver's Gap last Wednesday (for those of you who left your maps at home, Carver's Gap lies at the base of Roan Mountain in eastern Tennessee) I felt alone. Facing the magnificent beauty of the bald mountaintops ahead, I could not tear my mind away from the sheets of Holiday Inn, amidst thoughts of sauerkraut and almond butter, all graciously provided by my valiant father, Moosejaw. Looking ahead towards the wilderness and back towards civilization, I felt torn between two worlds. 

And yes, my friends, the trail provides, and yes, the trail does provide. When will I internalize this eternal lesson? This time, it took a dip into the rhododendrons to relieve myself of the previous night's culinary adventures to reacquaint myself with life on the trail. Thus, the chimera was broken, and Bootless hiked upwards. 

Why bore you with the mundane (yes, I mean earthly, but surely not lacking in divine element!) details of my days? My routine is unfaltering: wake/eat/walk/eat/make fire/eat/sleep--and yes, I do grant the occasional creek bath/harmonica jam/hackysack session in there. And the great paradox: each moment is utterly novel. Each leaf, each mountain, each fire--so I manage to stay on my toes, so to speak. 

So, I could speak of more interesting matters, such as rushing to the sumptuous Watauga Lake to grill hot dogs and smores, only to arrive on a desolate and windy beach with a smiling dead goose being lapped at by the dirty waves, but I will spare you--or I could allude to certain situations without granting them any real significance while still cleverly offering them up! 

But the lesson is: expectations are dangerous, and yes, the trail does provide, and yes, life is not a song nor a play, but something far more ephemeral and inexplicable, only to be experienced and never to be understood. Like, perhaps, a song or a play. 

I was wondering: must art be necessarily audienced? Or perhaps the opposite is true--art can only be genuine if no audience applauds or boos in the mind of the artist. Musings of an otherwise unoccupied mind.

Yes, I did promise an explanation for my current state of affairs: after exactly 26.2 miles of wet and windy hiking (wait, is it May?) I found myself singing Madonna and taking off my clothes in a karaoke bar in my home state of Virginia (467 miles down!), in the town of Damascus, precisely (a Damascathon!), and who but the studly Cayce Harper himself struts in to whisk 3 other (now full of pizza and burgers) hikers and myself back to his homestead in Johnson City, where we have dawdled the day away, eating often, attending films, playing music....

And tomorrow, I continue north, back to Damascus, back to the woods. If I were asked how I was feeling, I'd say elatedly exhausted, calm, poised, and ready to keep learning. I am free, I am an adventure, I am love. 

Thank you.

--Bootsy

Uncle Johnny's Nolichucky Hostel

Friends, family, boon-time companions...

I write to you in haste from Chestoa Bridge, nestled in Tennessee's own Blue Ridge. 

Haste because Charlie Weather predicts rain--rain folks, rain for 10 days, or in my world, 150 miles. 

Haste because sickness haunts this place, not sickness of the soul my friends, no, one far less insidious and far more temporary: a plague of the body, resulting in devilish violence within the bowels. 

Haste not because I don't love this town, not because five years ago when I breached these sandy shores began a new era of my life, not because my father waits patiently for me to add buttermilk to our oatmeal and put sauerkraut in baggies...

But haste because here marks uncharted territory for yours truly, your humble narrator, and as always, because the mountains call.

Today, in haste, joy abounds, amidst minor tribulations. 

You are never alone as long as you still can sing. 

In love,

--Bootless

Transformation is Complete and Unrelenting

I write from beautiful Hot Springs, NC--a stone's throw (or 2-day's walk) from America's most visited national park, a small mountain town nestled in d-natural blues in green, a land where the sidewalks are paved with white blazes and hiker refuse, replete with hillbillies, hippies, spas, bikers, and dives--the postcard of Amerisouthecana. 

And let me just say this: a lot has gone down in between.

I would think that a life as simple as this--eating, walking, eating, sleeping, etc.--would not be so filled with landmark events (minor and major, sharp, natural, diminished, augmented...depending on how you choose to see things)--but ah! When beingness is cleared of timecards and car payments, groceries and spouses, regulations and prohibitions, yes, yes, perhaps, room is created for these (internal!) musical happenings to occur.

Leaving the Nantahala Outdoor Center I was accosted by a friendly group of tourists--yes, in places where you pay 12 bucks for a burger, a man with a backpack and a beard attains celebrity status--asking me all sorts of questions completely un-obvious to an unseasoned mind, yet almost laughable to consider (ah yes, the beard, aside from stowing bits of pop-tarts for later also masks my amusement in these situations)...you know, things like "do you hunt for food?" and "where do you go to the bathroom?" and "does your mother know you are out here?" And me, smiling, answering respect(full)ively "no, in a hole, yes" and the fine ladies and gentlemen getting all worked up and gleeful, clapping and hooting, and as I turn my back to depart, the man of the house, old Jeff Davis himself, reaches into his billfold and retrieves a Jackson for me (amidst complaints from his wife regarding her lack of such treatment and protests from yours truly), only to be followed by his lesser, feeling slight, needing also to prove his masculinity through wealth, followed suit...and smiling, this solitary hiker trotted up the trail with 40 dollars in his back pocket. 

And yet, money cannot buy you love, this we know thank you boys, not love from a woman to a man, nor from self to self, or even from me to the world. Because that day, climbing in the heat, I cursed the trail, cursed my faltering knees, my tepid water, and feeling lost and forsaken, made plans to hitch out at the next road, fleeing to those who can make me smile with a kiss on the cheek or a pat on the head, just like drugs, and sundaes....

And yes: I paused. I really did. We did not have to go to the situation room. We did not have to clean up aisle 5. Throughout a painful hour of emotional evaluation, I came to realize one major ability, necessity, facet, whatever you need to call it, of my existence out here in Appalachia: I have everything I need. I am not talking physically. This walk, jaunt, if you will, is 95% mental (the other half is physical), and by that I mean emotio-spirituo--yes! He has it all! I don't need drugs or sundaes or girlfriends to feel at ease! I just need this guy right here. And through pure grace, I was touched, and I grinned uncontrollably, and continued my trek onwards towards this day, where said feeling of not happiness but ease, comfort, serenity, contentment, has followed me. No, guided me. 

I could tell you about all the 20-mile days I've done. Or the miraculous views. Or the amazing people. Or the moments of solitary joy. I could even use clever literary devices to tell you these things without having to grant them major significance. So I won't refrain. 

But what I mainly want to say is this: the trail provides. It gives me food, water, shelter. Company and solitude. Laughter, grief, growth. Trial and triumph. And so, I make sure to give back to it. I leave food. I donate socks. I bury my shit at least 6 inches deep. The trail breathes, nourishing itself and invigorating all who tread on its dirty platforms. 

Town has reminded me too much of how stressful life can be. And so, with that sentiment released in the Carolina wind, I lace up my boots and re-emerge into the mountains, into the trees, into Spring herself--the place where I feel at home right now. Safe. 

All roads lead to Maine. Until next time, friends. 

--Bootless

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.

Hiawassee, GA

Greetings friends! I write you from hopefully-getting-sunnier Hiawassee, GA.

The last 5 days and 70 miles have already brought, big surprise here, life lessons and emotional transformation!

Physically I'm feeling tip top--bustin ass up and down mountains and skipping along ridges...well yeah, there's a lot of heavy breathing and sore muscles involved, but it ain't usually my body that is forced to grow.

It's my mind and spirit! Ah yes, spiritual growth...insidious and desirable.

Moments of fear--I mean real fear people, the kind you get alone in the woods in a rainstorm--oh, and the doubt, the loneliness, the sadness, the homesickness....

And I am relieved to say that those moments are but pepper on my potatoes, well more like hollandaise on my eggs but you understand--

It is the moments of gratitude, serenity, awe, and wild mountain bliss than generally fill my belly and my soul.

So how would you characterize this freshly rejuvenated hiker sitting in a hotel room in a small lovely town in North Georgia typing on his iPhone after coming through high wind, ice, and mud?

You could say that his skies look sunny and clear, because in this moment, he feels it all, and even the bad feels good, because it's the holes that make us whole.

I actually do love life.

Onward to Fontana Dam, NC and the foot of the Smoky Mountains. Stay tuned.

-Bootless