Becoming Odyssa - Jennifer Pharr Davis [28]
Hot Springs was the first town that the trail traveled directly through. It was a scenic town surrounded by mountains and nestled in a narrow valley beside the French Broad River, but I was shocked at how small it was. There was a half-mile-long Main Street with a few small businesses that backed up against the river and a few dozen houses that led up the hillside away from the water, but that was all—that was Hot Springs.
As a thru-hiker, I appreciated the manageable size because that meant I could find everything I needed without having to do too much extra walking.
Waiting for my dad to arrive, I went to the post office, where I picked up a mail drop filled with food, fresh socks, a razor, and a bar of soap. It was strange to be receiving a package that I had assembled, addressed, and mailed to myself just a few weeks earlier.
After I left the post office, I crossed the street to visit Bluff Mountain Outfitters. I was amazed that a town of this size could support an outdoor store, but I suppose it benefited from the ill-equipped hikers on the Appalachian Trail; the cold, wet rafters who paddled the French Broad River; and the tourists who came to the town’s hot springs and then wandered down Main Street in search of a souvenir.
I didn’t need anything from the outdoor store, but that didn’t stop me from perusing the aisles and examining the brightly colored camping gear, which seemed much better than the archaic and monochromatic gear on my back. As I made my way to the back of the store, I noticed a map on the wall. It showed the entire Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine, and there, near the very bottom, was a small sticker marking Hot Springs.
I thought back on how hard the first section of the trail had been for me and how much I had overcome; it seemed unfathomable that I could still be so close to the beginning. I was suddenly overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude and distance of the trail. When I saw how little I had covered, making it to Maine seemed impossible. Momentarily frozen, I had to literally give my body a quick shake to free it from self-doubt.
I left the outfitter and went in search of the most important component of a trail town—food. I found a quaint convenience store and sandwich shop near the edge of town, where I ordered a large sub and waited for my dad to arrive. When he pulled up in his white truck, I eagerly jumped inside and was once again whisked away to the world of hot showers and basketball.
My second trip home wasn’t as enjoyable as my first. Entering my room, I found a “to do” list that needed to be accomplished before that evening’s game. I started to check off each chore one by one. Several of them included packing up the personal items in my room and separating out old clothes and books to be given away. I was struck by the fact that this room, and this building, was no longer my home but my parents’ house. I would never again stay here for an extended period of time, and the fact that my mother was trying to convert my childhood memories into a guest bedroom only intensified that notion.
At first I was angry. I felt abandoned and forgotten. But soon the self-pity melted away, and I began to understand that it wasn’t my parents who were changing, it was me. I was the one leaving. I was the one who had outgrown childish things, school projects, and collages on my walls. I had to keep reminding myself that for the next five months my home was on the trail. And it made it a lot easier to stay out there, knowing that I didn’t have a room full of pictures or a closet full of clothes waiting for me.
That night we sat around the TV as a family and watched the Tar Heels win the National Basketball Championship. Some families look forward to Christmas so they can spend quality time together; I look forward to basketball season for the same reason, and this had been a particularly good season. I no longer had a bedroom to come back to after the trail, but sitting and yelling at the TV in the living room, I knew I would always have