Date: 2005-11-28
From: mid-night musings...

To: ...or, what you get when you can't sleep at 3am
Miles today: 0.0

Insomnia strikes again. I always have difficulty getting sleep on the eve of any big change in my life. And, while the move to Portland has been temporarily postponed, it¢s definitely happening (Jan 5th-ish? I¢m accepting wagers¢¦), and I find myself dwelling on it more and more, to the extent that my brain simply won¢t stop whirring and churning. Yeah, I have a bloody computer in my head. One that doesn¢t have an on/off switch. Then again, my sleeplessness may have another cause. Maybe, perhaps, I reluctantly concede, caffeine, that diuretic additive that (in a true testament to my inner-geekiness) I could once unhesitatingly rattle off the chemical formula of (and I might have even once, long ago, in a previous incarnation, owned a T-shirt prominently displaying the compound w/ its myriad tangle of Cs, Hs, and Os) -- well, perhaps caffeine no longer has no effect on me and my physiology. In other words (sifting through that double negative there), I may have (gasp!) lost my immunity and imperviousness to it. Well, regardless of whether my insomnia is a result of the 2 large coffees I downed this evening, or b/c of my incessantly operative brain, either way, sleep eludes me. And so I find myself here, at 3am, typing (rather inarticulately) away. Lucky you.Reduction in my sleep schedule is nothing new to me. As I said, I always get jittery and sleep-deprived on the cusp of significant events. You should have seen me the week before I left for college. A walking zombie. And then, taking narcolepsy to a whole new level, there was the week leading up to Summit Day. Whoa. And I thought heading off to college was bad¢¦ Once we entered the 100-mile Wilderness, the frazzled nerves and jitters descended in full force, setting new records of frazzley-ness and jitteriness. Sleep was virtually out of the question. I mean, this was Summit Day. Katahdin. The Sign. This was the End of the Appalachian Trail. This was the day, the moment I¢d been dreaming of, anticipating, looking forward to and simultaneously dreading, since taking those first northbound steps from that mountain in Georgia. This was the end of the line, the future beyond it nothing but a black hole, a giant unknown. This was It. October 8th. The date to focus all of my nervous energy and angst. The date had been established at some point in the Whites, b/c Poet needed to have a concrete schedule to dispense to friends and family. In her defense, she had people meeting her for the big day, so pinpointing a date was, arguably, essential. And yes, I admit that having a timetable does have its perks. But as for me, I¢ve come to the conclusion that I personally favor the impromptu, unpredictable life. (At least, as long as it¢s not too impromptu or too unpredictable. Ahh, 'tis a fine line that I walk¢¦) But, October 8th it was to be. Which was fine by me. The 8th was far enough removed from the 15th that, should some unforeseen convergence of events -- an early blizzard dumping 3 feet of snow. Or a fluke tornado. Or rampant flooding closing Baxter State Park. Or an earthquake. (Pessimistic much?) -- Anyway, should some weather-related disaster strike, we still had breathing room. (Yes, I know, after just confessing my penchant for the unplanned lifestyle, here I am, obsessing about ¢breathing room¢ and improbable (but not impossible) meteorological events. What can I say, I simply can¢t escape my anal-retentive roots¢¦) So, the 8th was an ideal balance, providing the obligatory ¢breathing room¢, while still managing to draw out the journey as long as possible. (As Dad was fond of saying, ¢You¢re gonna take as long as you possibly can before you finish the thing. We all know it.¢ I plead the Fifth.) Even more favorably, the 8th and Katahdin were far enough removed, both temporally and geographically, from my current location -- several weeks and several hundred miles, in fact -- that I didn¢t feel yet under the shadow of that majestic mountain in Maine. It was, after all, only early September. October 8th was a long way off. Time, however, has this pesky relentless, unyielding quality to it and, despite my wishes for the existence of a giant ¢pause¢ button that I had exclusive privileges to, time maintained its unhurried constant progression. October 8th naturally and inexorably encroached closer and closer, as we crept our way northward through the Whites, and the shadow of Katahdin grew correspondingly larger and larger. Crossing over the Maine border removed one more barrier (both psychological and physical), and I could almost palpably feel Katahdin loom closer, as if I literally did step into its shadow. Of course, this could also be a reflection of the fact that, when we entered Maine, we experienced 5 consecutive days of overcast, gray skies; everything was in shadow. But even still, I was able to maintain something of an objective, psychological distance. After all, the 8th was still weeks away and, even if we were now in the same state, there were still hundreds of miles separating us. (By this point, Katahdin wasn¢t just a mountain. Not that it ever was ¢just a mountain¢. But now, Katahdin had an identity, a personality, a persona.) When we started reaching mountaintops where Katahdin was purportedly visible, well, a few more chinks developed in my cool fa§ade. Spending the night in the ski hut on top of Sugarloaf Mtn, we poured over the relief map, and then scrutinized the horizon, searching for the tell-tale ¢hump¢ that was Katahdin. However, as there was no helpful flashing neon arrow distinguishing the ¢Katahdin¢ hump from all of the other humps on the horizon, we simply chose the most likely candidate and called it that. But the fact that we couldn¢t definitively say that we saw it was a balm to my insomniacal tendencies, allowing me to continue to delay reality and delude myself -- ¢If you can¢t see it, then it isn¢t there¢, or some such illogical reasoning, I suppose. (At this point, I should clarify that the ¢we¢ I keep referring to is the Pod. (Indefinite pronouns irritate me. My grammar teachers taught me well. Ummm, sort of. If you ignore my proclivity to use incomplete sentences. Or making up words. (¢Insomniacal¢ and ¢frazzley-ness¢ come to mind. But, their definitions are self-evident. Right?) Or incoherently writing verbose entries on trail journals at 3 in the morning. Or my penchant for lengthy asides¢¦) Anyway, ¢we¢ refers to the Pod. At least, the majority of the Pod -- Poet, Free, Serenity, and myself. Freedom and Thatch were some unknown distance behind us, close enough that rumors of their proximity trickled north to us almost daily, but far enough off that we never actually saw them. (And no, Freedom and Thatch didn¢t fall into the category that, if I couldn¢t see them, then they weren¢t there. That bit of (il)logic was reserved strictly for Katahdin.) When I resumed hiking again after my overly (painfully so) extended hiatus from the trail, as I recuperated from the (still unidentified) mystery illness and fatigue that inflicted me, the Pod (in its entirety) was just entering the Whites. We immediately (on the first day), as per usual, lost track of Freedom and Thatch, but the other 4 of us stuck together for the remainder of the journey, an amazing and somewhat astounding feat, considering our track record¢¦ at least, considering my track record. Anyway, when I refer to ¢we¢ or ¢the Pod¢, it means me, Poet, Free, and Serenity, with only a few exceptions, which I will point out in due course.)Returning from that little (okay, big) detour -- The days continued to pass, as we inexorably crept closer and closer, and yet, somehow, I managed to maintain the illusion that Katahdin was still some vague, far-off point on the horizon. And then, suddenly, it was October, and I clung desperately to the ever-dwindling timespan b/t ¢now¢ and ¢the 8th¢. My fantastical castles in the air, already standing on crumbling foundations, were utterly demolished when Free offhandedly mentioned ¢summitting on Saturday¢. ¢Saturday¢. Not ¢the 8th¢. Not ¢5 days from now¢. But ¢Saturday¢. A day. Not a date, but a day. Saturday, to be precise. Which meant that there were no more Saturdays b/t now and the specific Saturday (also known as ¢the 8th¢) that was to be Summit Day. Somehow, the concept of dates and numbers provided me w/ an illusion of distance and separation that mere days of the week simply didn¢t (or couldn¢t) convey. Summit Day was coming. Summit Day was practically upon us. And¢¦ drum-roll please¢¦ let the Freak-Out commence.Amazingly, somehow, I managed to survive this rapid crashing descent of reality and I was even managing to (somewhat) restore my recoiling equilibrium. Summit Day was Saturday. Today was Monday. Okay. Breathe. I could handle this. It¢d be okay. We were only halfway through the 100-Mile Wilderness; there was a nice, safe, 50-mile buffer b/t me and the Big K. Things were good. Actually, things were better than good -- Freedom and Thatch had, again as per usual, popped up, entirely unexpectedly, at the most unlikely place and time -- the Pod was reunited once again! And then, then a rabbit hole swallowed me up, and my nice, safe, 50-mile buffer was suddenly erased. All by the toss of a coin. A quarter, to be precise.And on that note, b/c cliff-hangers are such an effective dramatic device and oh-so-popular¢¦ (And, if you actually made it this far, through all of my mid-night ramblings, through this interminable entry -- Wow. I salute you. You have a lot of fortitude. And spare time. And, just for you dedicated folks, I promise that the story will be continued. Tune in tomorrow...)