Date: 2004-09-28
To: Merrimack, NH
Miles today: 0.0

Culture ShockI ended the day I had summitted Katahdin, and thus completed my thru-hike, alone in my motel room watching a ballgame and feeling depressed because I had not properly celebrated my accomplishment nor said goodbye to most of the friends I had shared that moment with after being with them so long. (My depression was compounded by the Red Sox losing to the Yankees in one of the most ineptly played games I have seen in a long time.)The next day the motel owner kindly shuttled Tyson and me to the Medway bus station (in a rural gas station), and I was cheered by seeing a number of packs lined up out in front. In fact, Papa Bear, Bees Knees and Relentless, section hikers who had summitted with me the previous day and Wigwam and Ocho, thru-hiking brothers from MN who had summitted the day before that, were there having their coffee and waiting for the same bus. That made seven of us who rode to Bangor together, and who spent that time celebrating together and getting to know one another better. Now at least I didn¢t have that sense of a lack of completion that had bothered me the night before.In Bangor we parted. Some were staying the night in the city, some were going to the airport for a flight out or to rent a car. I continued on to downtown where I had a 3 12 hour layover in the Greyhound station. After an early lunch I still had more than two hours to kill, so decided to wander around downtown (with a full pack and sore knees and hip, I moved very slowly), and maybe get a crossword puzzle book for my 4 hr bus ride to Portsmouth. Bangor must have been a flourishing city once, but now its four-block downtown had gone to seed and was filled with empty storefronts. However, many of those storefronts had been taken over by some very interesting activities. In one was the very active Bangor headquarters of the Kerry/Edwards campaign. Right next door was a tutoring service (Haworth Academy, I think, specializing in languages), but what interested me was the excellent display of Japanese items in the window ¢ artwork, calligraphy, and even some news from the Sumo tournament that was then going on in Tokyo. It wasn¢t very busy, so I got to talk a bit with the one employee there, and with the owner who was clearly of European descent but who had been born in Japan and been raised there through high school. I felt quite comfortable in that space.After leaving there, I shuffled toward the bookstore they had recommended to me. While slowly crossing the one busy intersection in town (where I learned that my pedestrian skills had eroded drastically over the last six months), I heard a voice asking ¢Are you a thru-hiker?¢. I turned and saw a young man who was vaguely familiar. It turns out that he was Achilles, who had finished his own thru-hike a month earlier, and whom I think I met while southbound, but don¢t remember the circumstances. While we were standing on the street corner chatting, I heard the same question again, but with a different voice. This time it was Gentle Ben, again someone I had met while southbound. Both were from the Bangor area. A few minutes later I walked away from that street corner feeling quite a sense of community, both with thru-hikers and with Bangor.The bookstore was also interesting. There were actually two bookstores next door to each other. Both were for rare and used books (fitting for Bangor, I thought). One was closed because the owner was on vacation, so I went next door. They didn¢t have any crossword puzzle books as such, but they did have a history of the crossword puzzle, with samples of different types inside. When I expressed that the ghost of my father would be quite displeased if I wrote in an old book, the store owner suggested that maybe it was time to exorcise that particular book. That suggestion resulted in a sale. As I was leaving I spotted ¢The White Stag¢, one of my favorite books in my childhood. I think I had gotten rid of my battered copy just before getting on the Trail, but the pull was too strong, so I bought it too, for my grandkids.Back on the bus, I read through ¢The White Stag¢ with fresh eyes, and enjoyed it immensely. I also read quite a ways into the puzzle history, and did some of the examples. But after a while I was gripped by the same ennui (thanks for the word, Gordon) that I had had the night before. But this time I recognized it. It was very much like jet lag, or more accurately the culture shock that often accompanies jet lag. I had a bad case of culture shock when I moved to Japan in 1990, and an even worse one when I moved back to the States eight years later. And of course, every time I went to Saudi Arabia I had culture shock. In all these cases it is a feeling that you have lost your social rudder. Everything is familiar, but somehow you don¢t know how to navigate it. You don¢t have a sense of belonging where you are.I was met in Portsmouth by Ken, who has been putting my photos up on my journal. He immediately took me to a local microbrewery and restaurant, and life began to look better right away. After a good meal and a good beer, I was ready for a rare pleasure the last six months, a night spent in my own bed. And I did. Since that time the culture shock has been slowly wearing off. I have enjoyed being by myself in my condo, settling in finally because I didn¢t have the time to do it right after I moved. But I very much enjoy my social interactions as well, maybe because they contrast with my solitude, like the warm welcome I got at the Planning for Peace meeting the night after I got home, and the chance meeting with a fellow thru-hiker yesterday at another activist meeting.Tomorrow I leave for a drive thru the Midwest, visiting old friends and relatives, most notably my son, Patrick, in MN. On the way home I will attend The Gathering (put on by the Appalachian Long Distance Hikers Association, http://www.aldha.org/, Columbus Day weekend), in Athens, WV. Hope to see some of you (a lot of you!) there!