Date: 2008-08-21
From: Gorham, NH

To: Gorham, NH
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: few clouds

Flapjack, that's me, flipping from one side-back-otherside-back and all over again when my hips hurt. It's all good, I'm in town, no worries about cold weather or accidentally blowing a snot rocket down the leg of my rainpants like I did yesterday...seriously, an accident, but no less disgusting nonetheless.I woke @ 7:30 a.m., and decided to get caught up on journaling (which has taken me the better part of 1 day by the way). Karen made me some coffee and I had a doughnut and some poptarts for my first meal, with a snack soon to follow of potato chips and french onion dip.V8 called and said she was doing laundry and offered to do mine. How sweet is that? I gave her my gross stuff and we also talked about our next leg..thru the Mahoosics, to include the infamous 1 mile long Mahoosic Notch, which some sobo's told us took them 4 hrs.We decided on a 5 day plan, with possibly finishing in 4 depending on how we felt. Also, A.M. is going to hang on this leg so I can teach her how...oh oh...might have another one! So V8 and A.M. are so nurturing, always taking care of me, giving me extra gatorade, doing my laundry, and even offered to do my resupply shopping if I gave them a list! I could REALLY get used to hiking with them! LOLAround 1, V8 called and they wanted to go out for lunch, so we all piled in to V8's car and went to the Moonbeam Cafe. I had a BLT, chips and a "naked orange soda" meaning it was all natural, no colors.After lunch, we walked to a tiny outfitter and I asked if they had Leki parts. Luckily, they had 1 set of tips left and I got some more baskets too. I'm going to try to fix it myself, but don't know if I have the proper tools to do it. The tips are just pressed on to a tapered end of the pole, ad after almost 1000 miles, they are really on there, and I don't have pliers. We'll see.A.M. and I decided we needed icecream, so we walked over to a place that had Gifford's Ice cream, and I got a double dip of coffee and chocolate chip cookie dough.I'm feeling scattered today...a bit on edge. The ladies left it up to me as to whether or not we zero tomorrow too. See, V8 put it best, at this point in this hike, I struggle with balancing the need to just finish and pound out the miles versus the need to rest and let my body heal. I'm tired folks, tired of this incessant (not MY Incessant) routine. If you're hiking, you wake up and "have" to pack, hike, set up, eat, stay warm, etc. If you're hiking but are in town, you "have" to resupply, dry your gear, clean your clothes, catch up on journaling, etc. I miss the days of waking up in my home and realizing I don't "have" to do ANYTHING if I don't want to. It's non-stop, and although I've probably taken 10 times the # of zero days as the average hiker, it seems I'm needing more downtime to refuel my mental energy as well as physical self. My body hurts, it does not feel good to hike when you hurt all of the time. So that's my dilemma..I need to finish...I need to re! st, which prolongs finishing. What decision did I make? We're taking tomorrow off too. I just can't muster the energy to get every town chore completed today. I don't have it in me to organize myself that much right now. Man, I think the Whites took something from me, and I do hope I get it back.We got back from icecream, and I tried fixing my poles. No luck, I even tried cutting the old tips off, no luck. I'l be taking them back tomorrow and let the outfitter do it. I'm short on patience today, short in general, and not 100% sure why, other than perhaps even zero days are not enough rest...mentally that is. I feel agitated. Not sure if this is part of the end or just the day.For Heather and others wondering what to expect from a spouse\partner who is completing the trail and coming home...I can only relate it to issues we are all probably sort of familiar with. First is the grieving process (as Ginny put it)..only as if it's a close friend with a terminal illness. You know the end is inevitable, you are afraid of it coming, and yet you don't want to prolong the suffering and you wish it could come right now.The "friend" being the trail..the hiking. It is the beginning of transition. Then, once we're home (and I'm guessing a little since I'm not there yet) I think it's going to feel a bit like (forgive me for even comparing the 2, because one is a choice, the other is not for most), but the way a veteran feels after having been on deployment, dropped into another world and reality with sometimes their life in danger....then suddenly they are home, and nobody around them has been thru what they just went thru, there's no way to connect on that level with your loved ones if they've not been there themselves, so you feel alone. This comparison is not meant to offend veterans, because I don't believe there is any comparison to being in war, so please know this, as I'm very sensitive to veterans' issues.My point is that there are start and end dates, were reality changes like the flip of a switch, and our primitive brains can not automatically adjust to such sudden change. As for reconnecting with your hiker, the WORST thing for me would be if Karen grew impatient or flat out said, "Can you stop talking about this all of the time?" I don't have to worry about that fortunately, but I think it's difficult for someone to be able to listen to a topic that they do not personally connect with. I can't speak about what may or may not be annoying afterwards. I think that depends on individual pathology, but last summer when I got off the trail, the news, television, and people in general annoyed me...as I saw even more than before how superficial we all can be, and how unimportant petty things are..but are made to be HUGE issues. You have to remember, hiking the AT puts us back to our basic levels of human existence..survival. Stay warm, dry, fed, hydrated, don't break your l! eg, avoid poison ivy, blisters, illness, weather, animals, and abuse your body for over 2000 miles of rugged terrain. NONE of those things can even be compared to or categorized with, what color shirt to wear to dinner, when should we take the car in for an oil change, when will we cut the grass (that had previously been allowd to grow however long nature intended), how is that report coming along with the deadline of 3 weeks from now (when you are used to living about 10 minutes into the future IF you need a snack or water).See what I mean though? Many family members say a long distance hike mellows their loved one, but I sort of think we all just don't assign importance to shit that really doesn't seem that important anymore...but as always, I could bewrong....we will soon see huh?So I hope this helps a bit Heather and anyone else that cares about my tiny opinion on the matter. You know how a young couple, newly engaged, spends sometimes a year or longer planning the big wedding, being the center of attention, having showers, and gifts, and celebrations and parties, and then the big day comes, and everything in the world stops for their moment (or it seems like it does) and then there's the honeymoon, and then FINALLY they go to their home, the phone stops ringing as much, no parties, nobody is asking in excitement about what is to come, and suddenly life is just "normal" and they look at one another and say, "Now what?" This doesn't mean they love one another any less, it just means now they start working on building their life together..the "work" part of it all. I imagine, many hikers feel that sudden stop, that halt in momentum, are suddenly back home and feel like saying, "Now what?" It doesn't mean they love you any less, they just need to f! ind their way back into that world, and that will take some time. You have to start creating momentum in your world again, memories, things to share, talk about, laugh about, look forward to, and in time, the brain will slowly release its clutches on the reality of the trees and fresh air and cold streams and sweaty stinky gear and intense climbs...and it will eventually hold it just in the background as a place to always easily revisit, and the "real" world will come back to the forefront and we won't all feel completely out of place, but I don't think any of us will ever have both feet solidly and completely placed back in the real world either...I think that's impossible after something like this.Now...I must pack my pack, make a resupply list and prepare to have the ladies over for dinner (a.k.a. pizza delivered) and perhaps some hot tub soaking or cards...who knows....I'll admit, writing about this scares me a little. What sort of freakin twilight zone AM I trapped in anyway? Shit.......~Certain