CT Beginnings

Day -1

I wait at the bus stop in town for the first of three buses that will take me to the airport. I am conspicuous, with my big backpack, carrying a cardboard box bound up with masking tape. I feel as if all eyes are on me, that everyone knows what I am about to do. I am embarrassed.

I am flying away partly because I want to get away from it all. The eyes, the questions, the people that know me. Explaining myself, having to invent a reason for the things that I do when in fact, most of the time, there is no reason. I couldn’t tell you why I do what I do, it just is. All talk of why is just useless speculation. I want to be freed of the prodding, the pressure.

The eyes, the eyes. I want to see, but I don’t want to be seen. Will I be able to disappear into the shadows, on such a more well known trail?

Last year on the VIT, absolute solitude. I grew a whole different personality. I felt what it was like to forget what I looked like from the outside. But here, the CT. A whole facebook group full of hikers, trail angels – a whole crowd of them. I know they are all great people. I’ve already gotten a ride to the trailhead, without even asking for one. And of course, I’m so grateful!

But with crowds, crowds of strangers, come questions. I’m tired of answering when there is no answer, I’m tired of talking.

Call it burnout, whatever. Burnout on trying to figure life out, and getting nowhere. So now I take a break. Try to at least.

Of course, I know I can’t expect the trail to solve anything. It will be what it is. But in some sense I want to do it to forget myself, to see and not be seen. To take and not be taken. Even in the acknowledgement that expectations can be ruinous, I agree it might be nice for the experience to be something like x, y, or z. However, the world will not change in my completion; it will become no less overwhelmingly complex, and no more frustratingly simple. I’ll still be me, fortunately, unfortunately.

The strong urge to disappear is making it difficult to be inspired to share much. It is a closing off motion, not an opening up. So I struggle with telling it how it really is. But I don’t want to write a story that gives the highlights and doesn’t balance it out with the ugliness. I resolve to be honest, but maybe save off publishing the blogs until I’m ready for the eyes again.

I make it to the gate, the first of two flights. I hope my checked box of tent poles and pegs makes it to Denver – just one of the many things to worry about.

Two delayed flights and one long taxi later I’m in a hot, stuffy hostel room, with a next door neighbour blasting tv at 2.30am. I take a cold shower and try to close my eyes, the jitters continuing to build.

Yet somewhere during that second flight, it occurs to me that the walls might not just keep closing in. You really can just leave the country that you haven’t left for six years, there are no barriers anymore. I feel a little relief in acknowledging that I orchestrated the event – as if it were a spark of hope that I’m not just at the mercy of the world. To choose what I am able to see, instead of being presented with image after tired image of the same patterns over and over.

Day 0

I sleep surprisingly deeply, and wake up on the hostel room floor. (The bed seemed wrong, too soft and warm for a third floor room with locked windows). Today is errand day, to purchase the last few supplies that I need to start walking from Waterton Canyon tomorrow.

I step out onto the street, disoriented. Which way is north? When I can’t picture myself as a little dot on a map in my head, I get nervous. When things don’t have a place in the grid, they begin to blend into one another, reaching out in frightful forms. I need an organized overlay, or else chaos threatens.

North, north. The bus to union station, yes. I enter the maze of REI and pick up some trekking poles and other dribs and drabs. Then lunch. It’s so hot; concrete reflects and I feel myself wilting. The rotten city smells and sprawls. My foamie takes up too much space, strapped to the outside of my pack, it feels like I’m wearing a ‘dunce’ hat, as I trudge down the sidewalk. Everyone knows, what do they think? I feel dumb for my desires.

Now south. Pick up a SIM card, groceries. I hope I don’t forget anything, but there is so much to remember. Do I have enough food, or too much? I decide not to bring bear spray, despite my fears. But maybe, the possession of a weapon deepens the division, anyway.

Then, a lovely angel picks me up and takes me to their house to stay very close to the trailhead. We pass by the big sign on the way and it feels ominous. How did I even get here? What is going to happen next?

A change in the emotional weather brings nerves to overpower the listlessness. The afternoon thunderstorm passes. I think I like not knowing what will happen tomorrow, as long as I can trust that it is the beginning of a journey, and not the end of one. I do good with direction. I don’t do good trying to relax, without knowing the bigger picture. But apparently I can only handle the very very simple at this time – one, all-encompassing direction, so that I might briefly be distracted from everything else. Maybe.

A trail is defined, someone else has already mapped out generally how the story will go. And so there is a trust in the rhyme and reason of each twist and turn. A delight in the unfolding as fulfilment of a potential. Anticipation and satisfaction.

But would a reader be as interested if I blogged my ordinary daily life in such detail as this? What is there to look forward to, when there is no map to follow along with, no mile markers to count? I am as yet undefined. There are no reasons I can find. There is no why, really. That’s not a very compelling story. Is it?