Trail Magic # 5- The Sign In The Road.

"He who lives amongst men will be irremediably vexed. If he wants to avoid it he will have to go and live in the mountains, but when he is there he will discover that to live alone is vexatious." Francisco Goya, caption to "Los Caprichos # 58"

Many of my family photos feature mysterious phantasms. A basket of puppies, a family reunion picnic, and a tentative man-hug, all partially masked by a pink cloud-not the workings of the spirit world, but those of a hasty photographer. My maternal grandmother was forever taking pictures of her fingers. In the snapshot above, I am not unhappy to discover that (at a crucial moment) I've made the same mistake myself. My grandmother died many years before her time, yet the smudge is there like a little wink from the past. A friendly ghost in the woods. This picture was taken towards the end of my 2006 solo Appalachian Trail thru-hike. The A.T. is a 2,175-mile hike that starts on top of Springer Mountain in Georgia (outside of Atlanta) and winds its way through 14 U.S. states before finishing at the peak of the mighty Mount Katahdin in Maine (outside of Bangor.) The trail goes over many roads, streams, and bridges along the way, but the crossing I remember best is the one shown above. Its just a little paved track though the Maine wilderness, but the thing that makes it so special is the magic number painted on it-2000 miles. Due to trail rerouting over the years this sign now sits roughly at trail mile 2010, but all of those round numbers still made my imagination spin. The year 2000. One million dollars. "Bill-yuns and uh...bill-yuns." Did I really walk all that way? The whole time I was hiking, I avoided looking at maps of the entire A.T. This was not easy, because in trail towns and hostels they are as common as flags at a Fourth of July picnic. Somehow I thought that it would be bad mojo to consider all that I'd done and all that I had yet to do, like "The Snows of Kilimanjaro"-taking stock and coming up short. I first saw the sign in the road when I was watching a documentary about thru-hiking the A.T. on public television three weeks before I started my hike. My tent had just come in the mail and I had it spread out over the living room floor in a tangle of poles, chords, and smelly new plastic. I missed the first part of the film where, presumably the hikers didn't have their shit completely together. Maybe they had been a little pudgy (like me,) or had had a pack the approximate size and weight of a professional wrestler (like me.) I hoped that this was true, but when I tuned in, the hikers looked rough and ready. "Two men enter. One man leaves," tough. Calves hard and brown like temple bells. They stepped out of the woods and on to the pavement with all the emotion of pilgrims slipping into the Ganges. Some giggled nervously. Some posed for photos. Most sniffled and stopped a few beats before before pushing on. When I started my own hike in an icy February rainstorm, I had no reason to expect any more then hypothermia or trench foot. I wasn't an athlete in high school (or a math-lete for that matter.) When I was picked to play a position in gym class, you could usually find me picking at the grass or examining the clouds as the ball whizzed by. While I was living in rural South Africa the idea of doing a thru-hike got into my head and would not go away. I asked my Mom to send me a copy of Bill Bryson's audio book version of "A Walk In The Woods" and I listened to it nearly every night as I went to sleep. During that time, I was going to funeral after funeral-friends, neighbors, students, and members of my adopted African family, all victims of the AIDS pandemic. I spent my weekends handing out condoms and helping to dig graves in the red sandy soil. I could feel myself growing very brittle and tiny inside, like rushing water wearing away a stone. In January of 2005 I started jogging every morning in a fallow field near my room. At first I would lumber around for fifteen minutes and then collapse on my bed with my head swirling and stomach heaving. But within two weeks, I noticed that it didn't hurt so much and that I could go longer and longer without getting winded. I was also learning more about the tradition in African spirituality in which a person separates themselves from society in order to gain greater access to ancestor spirits and the unseen worlds. As a person who sees the world from a largely scientific vantage point, I believe that the source of these visions is internal (mental) and not external (otherworldly.) However, the traditional healers that and I both agree that dreams have tremendous value. For me, a source of ideas and images for painting. For them, an insight into the psychology of themselves and their patients. When I returned to the U.S. a few months later and actually started walking the trail, I had hopes that isolation in the woods would help me both manage my grief and gain access to seldom visited mental nooks and crannies. Physically, I found that (for all my training) I was at the very lowest level of fitness that would allow me to continue hiking without blisters or serious pain. Thankfully, thru-hiking is one of the few endeavors where the training and activity are rolled into one. Its just not possible to walk for twelve hours a day and hold down a job, or a relationship with a non-hiker, or anything at all. Being sort of a thru-hiker is like being a little bit pregnant. Mentally, I was happy to discover that I was better suited for the journey. I was accustomed to spending days alone in the studio, so spending the equivalent time in the woods did not hurt as much as it could have. I had time to dream deeply and practice what I learned in Africa-chatting with a few friendly ghosts. And, as winter bloomed into a warm Virginia spring, the world started to look less like an open grave. I met other hikers, hitchhiked, laughed, ground one pair of boots to powder, found a free pair of trail sneakers, proudly took on a silly trail name, and ate entirely too many Snickers bars. Then, I found myself standing alone on a little paved track in the Maine wilderness and looking down at at a sign written there-2000 miles. I felt like singing out, and also like setting up my tent on the double yellow line and waiting for a logging truck to come along. I sniffled and stopped for a few beats before pushing on.