Date: 2007-08-06
From: Rockfish Gap, VA

To: Blackrock Gap, VA
Miles today: 19.5

Today was a long HOT, humid day on the trail. It was 85 degrees by 10:30 a.m., and add to that humidity, it was probably close to 100 degrees. 19.5 miles, 10 hours of thinking time, reflecting time, and me time again. I hiked from Rockfish Gap to Blackrock Gap, and for the most part, a pretty easy hike. I think I dug about 50 gnats out of each eye per hour though. Water was scarce, which forced me to hike the last half of the day on just over 1 liter of water. I am so hoping that everyone out there is doing ok on water further north. All in all the hike was a great hike though.I saw a deer, a baby grey snake, a cute little earthworm, 2 wild turkeys, and my closest black bear encounter yet! I was going along (deep deep in thought), and about 300 feet in front of me I see this adorable (and kinda big) tan snout and dark brown face peering around a tree trunk at me, right ON the trail! So I stop, heart pumping with excitement to grab my camera, and the bear moseys across the trail, walks up the hill and out of sight. It was totally unimpressed and unphased by me though! hee hee I failed at getting a picture¢¦.damn. Still an awesome experience though.I had to laugh on several occasions today. When you enter Shenandoah National Park, there is a sign as you hike into the woods that state ¢You are entering the SNP Backcountry¢¦..¢. Um¢¦ok¢¦.almost the whole time of my hike I could either SEE or at least HEAR Skyline Drive, the road that runs through the entire park! LOL Every time you cross the road and re-enter the woods, there¢s one of these signs and it absolutely made me laugh every time. I think of ¢backcountry¢ like being heli-dropped into the middle of the Alps or something, not the AT, which in general, is 1 day from a town, and backcountry is certainly not in the SNP. Nonetheless, my hike today served a purpose of monumental proportions for me personally.My Shaman friend, Blackie, told me a story (which I am paraphrasing sort of badly here) near the beginning of my hike about a young woman who was seeking wisdom, so an elder took her to the Cave of Wisdom and told her to enter it. She went inside, alone, and she walked around from room to room incessantly, looking for the wisdom contained in the cave. She realized every room was exactly the same and she could see no way out now. She found nothing magical, no ¢lost scrolls¢ containing life¢s answers, no sacred beam of light leading to a secret location¢¦.just room after room of the identical thing no matter which way she turned. She got frustrated because she didn¢t know what she was supposed to be looking for and she felt as if she was wandering pointlessly. She finally broke down, fell to her knees and cried out, ¢How am I supposed to learn what I need to learn when I am just walking around in circles that lead nowhere?¢ It was at this point her elder re-appeared and told her she had indeed discovered the wisdom of the cave. What she didn¢t know was that she was right by the entrance of the cave all along and didn¢t even realize it. She couldn¢t see it. To me, the wisdom she found was that life is much like this cave. There are periods when you feel as if you are lost, wandering, searching for answers, and it is not until you stop, reflect¢¦.practice stillness that you realize the endless search for the answers is the very thing that is inhibiting you from finding them.On my hike today, I was able to see that I need stillness in my life now. The trail has served as my sanctuary, a safe place for me to wander and to confront the many questions I had about myself, my life, my beliefs, why the world ¢is¢ the way it is. Whereas I have not shared the details, I will share with you all that my life has changed radically since I started this hike 5 months ago. You might say that everything I knew to be my reality prior to my stepping on Springer Mt. on March 12, has changed, and I feel an overwhelming sense now to re-ground and re-center myself¢¦...to be still and to take the time to ponder the things I have learned out there. Hiking the AT is a life of constant motion, movement up and over mountains, around bends, over streams and rivers, setting up and tearing down camp, into and out of trail towns and into and out of complete strangers¢ lives; and I realized on today¢s hike that the next phase of my journey could not begin if I was constantly expending my mental resources on continuing the motion. My hike was never about the goal of hiking the entire trail in 1 year. My approach was always that the trail was offering lessons to me, experiences for me to learn from, and situations that would allow me to face some of my own demons, and I can say that it certainly did all of those things. I was afraid in my mind that even by the time I made it to Maine, I¢d still feel it wasn¢t enough, that I¢d be walking away in the same plane of lostness that I was on when I started. Today¢s hike told me that even though all of my questions have not been answered completely (such as the ¢What do I want to be when I grow up?¢), that my place right now is at home, which by the way, is now 30 minutes from the AT, so my sanctuary is not far away when I need to return to it and be in motion again. My sadness, deep sadness that I¢m experiencing comes from the fact that this decision means I will have to let go of a relationship I¢ve had for over a year now¢¦my relationship with all of you. I will admit, my biggest joy from town to town was not the first meal, the first shower, or the flushable toilet. It was downloading my emails from all of the people who followed my journey and it was feeling a connectedness with my human family that I had not ever felt before. That is my greatest loss, yet regardless of my exit point from the trail, this too was inevitable. I¢ve not even met 99% of you, I don¢t know what you do for a living, what you look like, how old you are or where most of you live, but none of that matters to me. Every person who commented in my guestbook, emailed me, said a prayer or sent positive energy my way, wrote encouraging or funny words, or just read my journal without making yourself known to me¢¦¢¦all of you have been without a doubt, the greatest part of my journey. There was nothing quite like walking into a trail town and having a total stranger say, ¢Hey! You¢re Certain!¢ Talk about feeling connected¢¦.. And for those of you that I did meet, who helped me, who gave me rides to impossible places, showed me how to get to the store, gave me your phone # to call if I needed anything up the trail, shared a huge smile and moment of joy with me, took me to a restaurant miles away so I could eat the food I was craving, massaged my filthy foot in a laundro mat, told me about your hike of the AT, gave me tent stakes to replace yet another stake that I¢d broken, gave me FOOD, took the time to wish me a happy birthday, and who allowed me to just have a great conversation with you¢¦..for those of you I was fortunate enough to actually meet, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Seeing as how I live so closely to the AT now, there are a group of southbounders and future years¢ hikers that I can pay all of the favors forward to, and that is very exciting to me. There are some of you that were waiting for me to get to your neck of the woods so we could hike together (Opie¢s Annie for instance). I can¢t say yet if I¢m going to complete the whole thing next year or choose to do smaller sections in multiple years, but I desperately want to stay in touch and anytime I can have an excuse to take a road trip and get out there again with a friend, I¢ll take it (So email me Annie¢¦maybe we can still work something out this year!). I don¢t feel like these plans have to be cancelled just because I¢m not hiking through your neighborhood on a thru-hike. (but to anyone I hike with, be prepared to hear my hammock rhetoric if you¢re not a hanger! LOL). Right now my plan is to put myself through something even tougher than my hardest day of hiking the AT¢¦.being still, facing some of the more poignant questions I¢ve not found answers to, and learning to find peace even in the midst of great uncertainty (which from my trail name, we all can figure out isn¢t a place I¢ve spent much time in). I am going to exercise my newly discovered patience, which the trail forces you to learn. With 5 months of hiking, quite a bit of self-imposed isolation, quiet time, and simplicity, I have been able to define in a most precise way, what it is that makes life meaningful to me. Whereas I always knew it was about people and not stuff, I also now know that I need to have a life where I can take care of my body both physically and nutritionally, where my mind and soul have time to rest and enjoy life, and I need to feel a sense of safety no matter where I¢m at in life. Once I have nailed these things down in a way that can be articulated to a potential employer, then I will address the career/job issue.I do know I am meant to be an educator, but have very little desire to serve in an institutional setting again, like a university. I am leaning more towards some type of community educator that is involved in empowering groups of people, be it women and girls, LGBT, human rights, feminism, mentoring younger women/girls, or some other group that I personally identify with. I¢m pretty open to suggestions actually, but finding these sorts of jobs is also very tough. I also discovered I truly enjoy the journaling experience. I¢m definitely going to journal privately, but am also thinking about starting a blog elsewhere on the internet. Again, the sense of connectedness and the numbers of people that reach out and say, ¢I so understand where you¢re coming from,¢ is something I cherish.I¢m so completely excited, however, that now I get to have over half of the AT to continue exploring and having that to look forward to is pretty huge to me..sort of like prolonging Christmas morning by opening only 1 present per day. As I hike more miles on it, I¢ll update my journal, but obviously I¢ll be considered a section hiker now. As for a book, it did occur to me that all of the books I read were written by thru-hikers, giving advice on the ¢how to¢s¢ of being a successful thru-hiker, as well as warnings of the difficulty of the task. I¢ve never seen a book (maybe someone can correct me here) written by someone who started off thinking they¢d do the whole trail in 1 season, and then allowed the journey to guide them instead of ¢the goal¢ which resulted in not hiking the whole thing in 1 year. There is much to learn from going through this type of experience as well, and considering how statistically, more people end up not thru-hiking in one season, perhaps a book on this would be helpful to the AT community and future thru-hikers. I¢ve seen so many people dog themselves and beat themselves up (on their journals and whiteblaze.net) because they somehow believe they ¢failed¢ if they couldn¢t complete the whole trail in one year. I can¢t say I understand that mindset at all, except to say that if the only reason for hiking was to attain that singular goal, then I can understand your disappointment, but I can¢t imagine how a journey of this magnitude could be reduced like that. My hike was a catharsis for my life. Anyway, we¢ll see, I¢m not totally convinced more than 10 people would buy a book I¢ve written if I did it, and I¢d only want to if I thought others could benefit from it, if I could put my weird twist of humor into it, oh, and if it made me rich. LOLI will be putting at least one more entry regarding my gear, a sort of final evaluation of how it worked, some tricks, etc., to help out anyone who is interested. I am going to deactivate my pocketmail account, so my personal email (and ALL are welcome to email me for any reason, questions, bullshitting, gear talk, opinion, let's get together and hike/camp, I want to learn how to use a hammock, etc.) is:micheleazehr@hotmail.comAnd yes, now, I will have the time to get the rest of those pictures up¢¦it is VERY time consuming if you¢ve not figured that one out yet. I thought I¢d get them all up last weekend, and that sure didn¢t happen now did it! LOLI¢ll be planning on attending any hammock hangout event anyone hosts if it¢s anywhere near Virginia, and I might even see about hosting my own¢¦hmmm¢¦.so seriously people, go RIGHT NOW and buy a hammock! Take care all, and thank you to every single person that was part of my journey (for this year)¢¦..more will come in the future. ~Certain