Date: 2007-07-18
From: Stony Brook Shelter 1696.6

To: campsite at 1708.6 
Miles today: 12.0

It is nearing ten O'clock and I haven't left the shelter. It is raining. Not just drizzling, not just raining off and on, it is raining steadily. If I start hiking I will soon be wet. If I sit here all day and don't hike: the weather report says it will still be raining tomorrow and I will be low on food and forty miles from the next resupply. What to do? I have been carrying a Hershey Bar since Manchester Center and I take it out and eat it. It is gone too soon, with no lasting satisfaction. I think about the peanut butter I just bought and the two, one pound, loaves of bread I am carrying. I could make that last four days if I eat half a loaf a day.It isn't lunch time yet and I'm at a loss for what to do. I write. I am a writer. Writing is what writers do. I make myself more comfortable by leaning against the side of the shelter and I wonder what I might write. I am glad I am alone. The other thru hiker who was here last night is meeting his parents in Hanover in two days, He had no choice but to start hiking. I can picture him now trying to cover ground while dodging rain drops. He must be miserable. I want to be smarter than him. I want to get to Hanover on Friday too, but I want to be dry. I want to be patient. I want the clouds to part and I want there to be a clear opportunity for me to hike without getting soaked and cold, without getting my feet rubbed raw and blistered. If I sit here long enough another North Bounder will show up, soaked to the bone and shivering, he will marvel at my ability to sit still while there are miles to hike and towns to discover. This is all just an analogy for hiking I think. I want to wait for the right inspiration. I want to wait for a clear signal that it is time, that I am ready. If the analogy holds true then if I wait: I grow old, hungry, and no further ahead. Perhaps I must face the inevitable and welcome the realization that I am going to get wet. I fear I will eat too much if I decide to start writing. I fear I will get fat again. I have already decided that losing my health is not worth whatever satisfaction I might get from writing. I am more of the schemer: I want to wait for the right time. I don't want to force anything. I make a peanut butter sandwhich and eat it. I unpack my coffee pot and stove only to discover I have no more than a few ounces of water. The coffee is rich and strong but the half cup is swallowed in a few gulps and the rain is still falling and is falling hard enough for me to doubt I will be able to get more water without getting wet. On goes the trash bag I use for a raincoat and I walk the 200 yards to the stream where the water source is flowing strong and clean with the night's rain. I don't get wet at all and think again about heading to the next shelter in order to get a few miles closer to more food. I heat up some water and put the three coffee bags I used earlier in the morning into it. It is time to ration. The coffee is nice and brown but suprisingly weak. There is an analogy there and I know it, but I can't decide what it might be. The rain falls hard on the roof of the shelter and I am glad to be sitting there sipping the hot coffee even if it isn't very good.Who would want to read my writing I wonder. I this and I that: I,I,I. Just a lot of words written to fill a lull. Weak ingredients thrown together into a slabber. All caused by my indecicevness. My things lay about me on the floor of the shelter. I have been packing on and off all morning, wondering how to walk in the rain for five or more hours while keeping enough things dry so I can get warm when I get there.Suddenly it happens, I am counting my trail bars and then eating them. I eat three in rapid succession as if I were Hemmingway downing shots of Scotch, looking for that next bit of inspiration. It is raining again and I wonder if I pack my things and get ready to leave if I will leave. Worse yet, I wonder if I decide to stay and write if I will later regret it. John-Knee-Mud