Becoming Odyssa - Jennifer Pharr Davis [105]
Until now, I hadn’t been okay just being, I had to be doing. Everything was part of a schedule, a routine, a constantly flowing series of commitments. I never stopped after I finished an activity, I just looked ahead and prepared for whatever came next. I started to think about how many different things I used to do in a day. I would schedule myself to the max, and the only free time I would leave was taken up with getting from one commitment to the next.
On the trail, all I had to do was walk. It was up to me how far I wanted to walk and where I wanted to end up. I could stop when I wanted, I could eat when I wanted, I could take naps at any point during the day. The trail allowed me to feel a strong sense of freedom. And it helped me to see the oppression of a busy schedule and the way we multitask in civilization. I no longer saw what was civil about filling my life with commitments if I couldn’t stop to watch the sunset or listen to the birds sing.
Because I wasn’t in the company of thru-hikers in Vermont, I would sometimes talk with the animals. If I found myself alone in a shelter, I would share conversation and a few crumbs with the resident mice. I knew I shouldn’t give them my food, but they were cute and furry, and I figured if they were full then maybe they wouldn’t try to eat a hole through my food bag in the middle of the night.
On the path, I was delighted to once again find the bright orange salamanders that had dotted central Virginia; the fact that they were so lethargic made them really good listeners. I would pick up the lizards, tell them about my day, mention how lucky they were to live in such a beautiful place, then I would put them back down right where I’d found them.
There was another animal in Vermont that I hadn’t seen before. It had the coloring and size of a chipmunk, but it looked like a squirrel, so I called it a chaquirrel. I liked the chaquirrels, because it was fun to say their name and because they were mischievous. They skirted around tree trunks and jumped from branch to branch to keep an eye on me. And their noise didn’t sound like a chirp or a tweet, but like a laughing child.
When I did come across people, I would talk to them too. Not just “Hi” and “Bye” and “Have a good day”; I wanted to know where they were from, what they were doing on the trail, if they liked it or didn’t like it, and why.
I spent one full afternoon on the rocks of Clarendon Gorge talking with the locals who had retreated to the cool rapids of Mill River to escape the summer heat. They shared their food and their stories with me. And as I sat and listened to them talk about interests ranging from car parts to pottery and football to farming, it struck me that every person I had ever met and would ever meet knew something I didn’t and could do something I couldn’t. It was a simple truth, but I finally realized that the more people I invested in, the smarter and better equipped I would be.
That night at Governor Clement Shelter, I spent the last hour of daylight at a nearby creek, sitting on a rock with my feet in the water, my journal in my lap, and a pen in my hand.
June 12, 2005
Before I started hiking the trail, two of my biggest concerns were that I would be bored or lonely. Aside from the first two days in Vermont, I haven’t been bored, and even without thru-hikers around, this trail certainly doesn’t seem lonely. I think I actually experience loneliness and boredom more at home than on the trail.
I stopped writing and looked into the water to think, to find my answers in the cold current that swirled around my sore, swollen feet.
Maybe the fact that I wasn’t lonely had more to do with the quality of relationships than the quantity. In college, I remember sitting in a packed classroom or cheering at a football game in the midst of a crowd, but still feeling alone. I had also spent the last three years loathing social mixers. Traveling around the room and having the same meaningless conversations with different people