Date: 2004-07-12
From: Georgia

To: Maine
Miles today: 20.0
Weather: broken clouds

Sleepy time tea in this old lodge-like shelter, all the makings of atwo story loft lodge minus the one exterior wall. And me on the nod,zonking out in the dark upright at the picnic table, eyes closed andall in bed, slipped into their bags and snug and food hung and mesniffing my new sweater for signs of burn, but no. I got lucky. While cooking dinner over my catfood can stove with denatured alcohol,I accidentally left the butane lighter too close to the stove's heatshield. The red hot metal melted a whole in the lighter and whooosh! Flames of butane shot out and together with the burning alcohol sent afireball up into my face. The explosion sure excited the gang! But Iwas all right. Quite a night, this after hobbling in here with Jessand her aunt Chris, the worst ankle sprain I've felt yet. -RSMFrom an email sent out the following day: "Rain rain rain. Ugh. Andgorillas on your end! The world is coming to an end. The sky isfalling. My feet are rotting from 3 days soaked shoes. Tornado inPennsylvania! An F3 the experts are saying. Tore up a stretch of land7 miles long, winds 200 mph. Really! Happened right nearby yesterday,same county I'm in, whilst I on the mountaintop hunkered down in thetrees squat beneath my poncho and waited out the deluge and powerfulwinds. Crazy weather. Brief sweet moment last night, however, incrowded shelter thus tight up against this pretty young thing. Shepulled out her guitar and sang like an angel and I nursed her on myfifth of mescal by candlelight whilst about a dozen guys looked on inthe dark just gaga. Too bad she's southbound. I'll likely never seeher again. Another ghost, another angel!"Gordy is a ski lift operator in the other world. Her legs are long catscratch posts, all scrapes and mud and bug bites and long gouges anddried blood. Suddenly I am Tarzan, and they're beautiful in aJane-kinda way. I ask about the gouges. "Chiggers," she says. How doyou kill chiggers? "Nail polish. You suffocate 'em. They die beneathyour skin." And then what? I don't wanna know.Wild girl Gordy strums her guitar, a narrow thing lute-like, and singsangelic from a handful of damp and dog-eared printout lyrics from theweb. Now its the Dead and "I know you rider" and Arms has joined in onhis guitar, peeling off the bubble wrap and tape with which hecarefully protected it from the rain. Beat Box, ever the man toreappear in my hike no matter how much time I take off or fall behindor climb ahead, he's there. And here appears tonight phantom like,genie from the bottle like his ever-singing spirit Aladdin. "Gordy ifyou were a guitar, you were the one I'd pick," he says.Now Beatbox has bowed out, gone back to his journal. Gordy sings NoExpectations and Arms play along. The loft of William Penn shelterthis is, rain all day like walking through waterfalls. A friend writesand describes swimming with dolphins and I feel that for a moment outhere today I swam with dolphins. -RSMMy sister, three years my junior, blew the Santa Claus myth for me whenI was 9, and I've never recovered. I insisted for years that all mythswere truth and and still persist in conjuring faeries taking flight inmy mind to places of beauty and eternal late-afternoon summer sunlight.But I began to understand eventually that quiet the opposite was true. Indeed, most truths I ever been told by peers and family or sold bycrafty advertisers, are myth. My father asked me the other day what itwas about the "real world" that made me anxious, panicky, and paranoid. "Advertisements," I replied, feeling at a loss for answers but actuallyhitting it right close to the heart. "To know that I live in a worldof lies."Back here in the woods of PA, there are no lies flashing in my face andeven corporate logos are kept to a minimum as diehard thruhikers striptheir gear of labels. No lies, only rocks. And rain yesterday inbuckets and soaking showers. And on my first day back out on thetrail after this latest break for major resupplying and family visitsin New England and the consumption of vast quantities of beer, on myfirst day back I rolled my right ankle again. Twice. The first not sobad. The second, crippling. I slept and rested it well, taking itslow today. And as I walk I speak this mantra, this prayer: please letme continue hiking. Please don't send me back into the world of lies. I can think of nowhere safe for me out there anymore, nowhere save asecure lodging, and a room of my own within it, shades drawn againstthe false night sun of pink-orange streetlights, phone unpluggedagainst greed and collection. And the only sources of music or filmones on which advertisements don't play. From such a safe haven, Iwould come out aplenty, but never long enough to let the sadness of theworld creep into me. ¢RSMFor the full story of Rick's journey,visit Jigglebox.com