Date: 2012-04-05
From: Swim Bald

To: Brown Fork Gap Shelter
Miles today: 10.0
Weather: light rain

April 5, 10.0 miIn the morning I sipped my coffee, cold, made yesterday from soaked hazelnut-flavored grounds. Thin Timber called Merrell's customer service about his boots. The first thing he said was ¢Hello, I'm a thru-hiker and...¢¢Her name was Molly,¢ I put in when he got disconnected. He'd been on speaker. ¢Thank you!¢ He got a free pair of boots delivered to Hot Springs. I didn't know it could be that easy. ¢Merrell has really good customer service though,¢ he told me. ¢With some brands it's a lot harder to get stuff for free.¢¢Maybe you wouldn't need good customer service if your boots weren't falling apart,¢ I said. I felt so secure in my North Face, gortex-lined boots that I didn't anticipate needing another pair at any point during the 2,000 mile trek.¢OK, feisty!¢ He came up to me where I teetered on a decaying, felled tree and embraced me, held me against him. Some of the barrier I'd built up against him in fear crumbled away. He smelled good and his shirt was very soft. I became calm and quiet there in the span of his arms.¢No cigarettes today unless you really deserve them. We've got to go to work today, OK?¢Whatever you say.He held me at arm's length to look into my eyes. He looked great in his mauve-dusted sunglasses, slightly opaque. ¢You're a strong girl.¢ I was affected by his words at once. My eyes misted over as I looked back at him and I brimmed with joy and yes, love. No one, none of the men I'd loved in the past had ever told me this. It was the thing I most wanted to hear. I'd had a craving, a tragic desire for them all to recognize me, see and know me as I really was: neither frivolous nor flirty or even pretty, those umbrella words which, tacked onto a woman, obscure her complex truth. And for him to tell me! Perhaps it is true that he risked much by doing so. Else why hadn't anyone told me before? Why didn't they let me in? But he could see it. At last, he'd found me. We'd crossed paths at the right time or he'd hunted me for a lifetime in the dream of a lost girl suffering from pronoia. They love me, they do. They must! I'd felt so much for them, but I'd had to wait. Until now. I accepted what he said and felt it, held it to me like I held him close. I will always remember this moment. OWe had a 2,000 foot climb right at the beginning of the day, and I shuffled slowly up every lip of it. I found solace in conversation. Thin Timber asked me what my parents were like. He told me a little about his, then I started to feel uncomfortable and, after asking a smattering of periphery questions, related to but not about family, I changed the subject to physical trauma. Scars, broken bones, stuff like that. ¢There was one really weird accident that happened to me in our old house,¢ he said. ¢I got electrocuted.¢¢Really?¢¢But when it happened, I saw the electricity as orange stripes racing through me. Little beads of light went up and down these stripes and cords of light, and then afterwards while I was still in shock, I saw an angel's head hovering right in front of me, illuminated in the dark. I could see its wings, but not the rest of its body. It looked like a baby's face.¢¢Wow,¢ I said. ¢And you didn't pass out or anything from the current?¢¢No.¢¢Are you Catholic?¢¢Yes. My mother's Italian.¢¢Maybe the angels were watching after you,¢ I speculated.¢Maybe.¢¢That's a lot cooler than anything I was going to say. I've just had various head injuries. Doorknobs, cement. Front and back.¢¢Seems like we both had some sense knocked into us, huh?¢ ¢I guess so.¢The climb continued on. Thin Timber coached me on beneficial things to do when hiking. He'd had a lot of experience before this and had also planned for this trip very thoroughly.¢When you're about to climb something big, stop and breathe deeply.¢ ¢OK¢ I wheezed. It did help. It was a very simple action that aided me routinely throughout the rest of my hike north.At some point during the climb to Cheoah Bald, Thin Timber wanted to pass me in order to go faster. ¢I'll wait for you at the shelter, OK?¢¢Alright,¢ I said. ¢I'll be there.¢ I trusted that it wouldn't be too far ahead; I didn't look at my own Data Book when traveling with 'Timber. And anyway, I told myself I wouldn't cry about it if we did get separated. I felt free.The shelter turned out to be so far away by terrain that was so brutal that I hiked until what was probably close to 2am in order to reach it. And my flashlight had run out of batteries. Jacob's Ladder, the last three miles before the shelter, entailed a series of false summits before resuming a near vertical course, but I enjoyed myself, taking my time, happily exhausted and singing as I climbed. I felt so good that at one point I actually lay down in the middle of the trail, arms stretched out at my sides. Not at all concerned about dirt in my hair or bugs on my body, I relaxed and breathed deeply, staring up into the vast dome of sky above me. Peaceful. Sometimes I talked to myself or reached out tentatively, trying to pray. It's difficult if you're not in the habit. But it felt right to narrate my inner thoughts aloud in a buoyant, humorous stream-of-consciousness. By all appearances, to the uninitiated observer, I would have seemed insane, perhaps dangerously so. But I'm not. I do know that the outward signs of hilarious joy and outrageous despair may appear to be the same to a ¢stable¢ person. They'd just term such extreme displays of emotion as madness or, more accurately, mania. There is not much difference between my happiness and my sadness. It's all the same to me, one prolonged exclamation point going on forever. When I got to Brown Fork Gap Shelter, over eight miles distant from where Thin Timber and I had last seen each other, I hoped to wake him in setting up my tent. I admit to wanting to impress him. Besides, I required the use of his headlamp. ¢Hey.¢ I heard Thin Timber greet me in the dark. I was setting up next to his hammock. ¢Hello! You wouldn't believe the effort it took me to make it here to you,¢ I said. 'Timber clicked his hanging globe light from inside his netting and it slid across its cord as the equilibrium and weight balance shifted. His feet elevated as he unzipped near his throat and, as if to reward me, he snaked his soft-capped head outside. Hello.