Date: 2015-05-08
From: Deer Park Mountain Shelter

To: Hostel at Laughing Heart Lodge - Hot Springs
Miles today: 3.2
Weather: clear sky

I slept great last night. I have to admit now that I am a little smaller my mummy bag feels more like a snuggly cocoon of comfort and less like a coffin of suffocation I took my time getting packed up and really enjoyed my walk into hot springs. It really was a nice walk in the woods. I was walking along, through spider web after spider web, when I noticed a tiny inchworm dangling from some spider web. He was trying to crunch up to get himself out of that predicament but he just kept spinning in midair. I grabbed the web and lowered him down onto a leaf. He seemed stunned and i stood for a while trying to imagine what he was thinking. Now I know you might say what about the poor spider? I saw nah I have always sided with the underdog. Some of the guys at the last shelter gave me a hard time for interfering with nature but I don't care, it made me so happy to see him bewildered on the leaf. Now this next part I went back and forth on whether to share with you or not and I decided to put it out there because I have not held anything back and this journal is just as much for me as it is for you. A little while down the trail I saw a dead mouse in the trail. It makes me so sad to see anything dead on the trail, there are always squished bugs because some people don't even pay attention. At home sometimes road kill would upset me so much I would have to pull over. I didn't want to leave the mouse there, I know I know a snake or hawk or something could have ate him, but I didn't want him to get stepped on or smushed. I picked up a bigger rock and dug a hole and under the bigger rock was a little rock his size. I pulled out the little rock and tossed it into the woods. I rolled his little body onto a piece of bark and put him in the spot the rock used to be. Before I did I really noticed who he was, his tiny round ears, his tiny feet, his tail. I covered him with some dirt and then put the big rock back. I closed my eyes and saw that same glittering glow i saw in the moss forest except this time it was much smaller like a rolling boil on the bottom. I tried to send some glitter to my mouse friend, I thought of him cupped in my hand with me stroking his little head and him happy with a little mouse cartoon smile, and I tried to send him that happiness. I said silently that the light in me is the same as the light in him and I walked on. Now you probably are thinking that I have lost my damn mind but I have never felt so sure. We are all the same. Big and small life is life. There is no priority or entitlement, each is as precious and as valuable. We are all the same. i was thinking as i was walking that this is uniquely mine, this love and empathy, and i thought about how it only brought me pain. I thought about how much pain I carried in the real world and how difficult a time id have returning from the woods. It wasn't until I had walked a while that i remembered the inchworm and how happy it made me to spring him from his trap. When I started to see the town I walked a bit slower, I wasn't ready to face the world, I needed more time with the trees.I stopped at the hostel at laughing heart lodge and met up with some trail friends. The trail actually goes right through town, very cool. This hostel is awesome. The owner Tie made everyone angel food cakes with whip cream and strawberries and blueberries. I sat on the back porch in the shade and ate my dessert. There was even a breeze. My eyes welled up with happiness. We went to dinner at the tavern here, it was lovely. I even had a glass of wine. It was nice to have dinner with trail friends I officially have three patches of poison ivy. One on each arm and one above my knee. Good thing I have been carrying that poison ivy scrub for all those miles I rested all day and tomorrow I'll rest again. I asked around here about a barber shop and was pointed in the direction of one and then I asked if there were clippers here at the hostel and there were and then I asked around to see who would buzz me a mohawk. oh yes, it happened. Its more buzz than mohawk but it's everything I always wanted it to be.