Date: 2010-06-03
From: Pinefield Hut

To: Bearfence Mountain Hut
Miles today: 15.6
Weather: clear sky

This must be the part of the story where the challenge switches from physical to mental. I've been feeling this way for days. The miles feel longer but they're getting shorter. Gone are the concerns about food. No more weight can be lost from my pack. The trail feels more like Cary, NC than a National Park. The Balds have been replaced by parking lot overlooks. Now instead of the sound of sweat dripping on my clothes, it's the sound of bones rattling in my mind like wind chimes. Questions and doubts stir in places where they never surfaced. Mind numbing. Cruise control where you're not paying attention and you forget the journey there.The way I feel is the way I've felt before. When you run so far away that when you look back, you're all alone. No one could keep up. Jerry from Kentucky had that look yesterday when he told me that he wasn't going to see his wife anymore after this visit. He told me that while looking me right in the eye. We both broke the glance between us because the emotion was to real. I practiced for this and for that feeling of lonelines by running on that treadmill. Uphill both ways. Bored and lonely. I tried everything. Diet changes. Speed changes. Incline changes. I was preparing for this mental challenge. Staring into those black pupils in the mirror in front of me I imagined myslef at this point. Broke myself down into muscle, bones, axons, mitochondria, and atoms. When I found a way to focus, the focal point wasn't the treadmill. It wasn't losing weight. It wasn't looking better or feeling beter. It wasn't to live longer. It was that shadow that I could see when I'd close my eyes while running in place. I'd close my eyes and hold onto the handle for a point of reference. The shadow of the man that I could be would stare me right in the face. Running without looking where I was going helped me understand that this isn't about today, this journey is about tomorrow. The only way to get there was to keep running. Pride could make you stop here. The kind of pride where you start running harder and fall. Running with my eyes closed felt like I might run into something although I wasn't moving. It's that feeling you get when you lay down at night and close your eyes, and then jump 3 inches off the bed. It's like running into yourself. The feeling of being alone when you open your eyes. You feel like you're going to fall if you don't give yourself a point of reference with your eye sight. That person you could be feels like it's hanging in the balance. Atreyu, from the Neverending Story, had to face a mirror of this true self in order to continue his journey. What you see with your eyes closed can be more real than you can take. The true ego. Rubbing shoulders with failure, just one trip and you'll fall. The hardest part about running blindfolded is not the fear of running into something, but the fear of hitting some sort of bottom. The truth. It stares you in the face. It's hard to feel safe. Walking here makes me feel like I could hit bottom. The worst could happen here. Practice focusing on the worst that could happen and when your eyes open it feels like waking up from a bad dream. You can't control the environment or the uncontrollable coincidences, but you can sense the person inside you, your soul completely seperate from your body. The idea of yourself. Feeling that scared me. I rarely ran like that, with shut eyes. I felt alone even with someone right beside me."Stare to long into the abyss, and the abyss stares back at you" - F. NietzscheI'm excited to see what happens when the emotions take over here and I can't just hit "Pause". I won't be able to open my eyes and wake up. Running without looking felt like running towards a cliff. Running towards the end of something. I'm excited to see what happens when I can't get off the treadmill and walk straight to comfort again. No cafeteria nearby to wash away the doubts in a glass of soda. When I'm afraid to open my eyes because nothing is there anymore, no family, no friends, just the shadow of Brian in all his imperfections. This is the point where vanity becomes and issue. You fear that you will fall and embarrass yourself. So you open your eyes. The more you embrace failure, the harder the monster stares you down. Scars are born at the boundary lines of vanity. You're lost when you close your eyes. Nothing but a dream. The disconnection of vanity, pride, arrogance feels like the bottom is approaching. The way the wind feels different when you're near an expanse below you. A void approaches as you feel the end getting nearer.That's what I think I was practicing for, failure. That feeling you get when you reach for the "Stop" button when you know if you believe beyond your abilities that you can keep going. When you believe your muscles, guts and brain are all it takes to continue. Everything I need to rely on is inside that shadow I see when I ran blindfolded. The question is will you trust it? Trust in the unknown. Trust beyond the vanity of complete failure. One breath at a time. One step out towards the edge on Faith. The person in the mirror running under fluorecent lights is the monster, the shadow you see in the lonliness of darkness is the creature of magnificent beauty. Free from all vanity. Funny how flying and falling feel so similar. Maybe if I start walking with feeling, instead of how it looks maybe I'll catch the wind and keep running further than the end. If the trail loses some of it's magic here, it's because of what you see, rather than what you feel.Put my foot in my mouth with Blitzo. He was in his tent and I didn't realize he was there. I felt like such a punk because I said, "Can you believe that guy thinks the worse thing about hiking, is the smell?! He must not hike much!" Blitzo overheard the comment and responded with, "What's worse than the smell?" I didn't know what to say, I felt like such a shmuck!I had to pee first thing this morning so I went behind a tree near the privy. When I looked behind the tree I heard a loud BUZZ, like a horde of creatures! I jumped backwards fearing a snake! It was a turd and the sound I heard was the crap flies. Disgusting! I can't understand why someone wouldn't go to the privy when it was so close. At least they didn't use toilet paper.