Date: 2004-08-26
To: Return to Civilization
Miles today: 0.0

Returning to Civilization was a much bigger deal than anticipated. That¢s for sure. My plan had been to simply hang out at home for a few days. As it turned out, that wasn¢t going to happen. My brother and his family were up from New Jersey to visit the mountains and me. I, of course, had thought this would be a great idea way back when as plans were made. Now, however, things were different. Time was needed to decompress, to contemplate, to figure out how to relate to this part of my life that was so far removed from the trail.It had never occurred to me that life in civilization could seem foreign. There were cars and telephones. There were people, people who had expectations. There were decisions to be made. What kind of phone service, television service and Internet service should be used. It had all been turned off last spring.After my visitors left, it was time to go back to the theatre, back to the now renovated school. The building had a very different look and feel. The stage was full of stuff related to every unfinished renovation project in the building including all the paints and tools the contractors might still need. I needed to tear up the old stage floor and put down a new one, but it was full of all this stuff. The student designers needed to begin on the next show. I would walk out on stage and just stand there. My eyes would look around but nothing would happen. There was too much to process. Where were the trees. Where were the rocks. Where was the sky. Eventually I would cross the hall to the Performing Arts office. After standing around there for a while, I would go home.In the mornings, it wasn¢t uncommon to just sit for a while at home, maybe for hours. It¢s hard to say how long. Then the lateness of the hour would become apparent, and I would find my way back to the stage. Not much would happen there either.This was not an issue of depression. Perhaps it was more a matter of distraction. My mind just couldn¢t leave the trail. It kept rambling along, looking for that next white blaze. It kept considering all the good times and good people. It kept trying to find just what made the hike so special. It kept trying to make sense of life on the trail and of life in civilization.Perhaps that was the time to be writing this journal but I couldn¢t. There was no way to know what to write yet. There was just so much experience, so much information to assimilate.After a few weeks my mind cleared enough to start work on the stage floor. Most of the stuff on the stage had been moved by then, and that helped. The focus required on this project also helped. One day in late September I remember saying to Dave, the director, that I had been a little out of it but thought things were better now. He smiled and said he knew that. This took me back a bit. It hadn¢t occurred to me that this internal struggle was so apparent on the outside. We talked about it and had a good laugh.Though the trail has never since been long away from my thoughts, it no longer preoccupies me. It has been kind of like grieving for a lost one. The only difference is that in this case you can go back. The trail isn¢t dead. You¢re just not on it.Speaking of going back, the spring of 2005 was really tough. The gravity of the trail was tremendous. My commitment to return to Valley Voyageurs at camp was plain and clear, but the pull of the trail was huge. It was too soon though. This guy needed some recovery time and perhaps some new experiences.One of the difficulties in the return to civilization is that everyone asks, how was your hike on the Appalachian Trail? Well, there is no simple answer. In fact it is hard to come up with a single answer at all. It was great. It was long. It was fun. It was hard. It was tiring. It was rainy. It was hot. It was cloudy. It was cold. It was sunny. It was about the solitude. It was about the people. It was about the speed. It was about the distance.It was akin to someone asking how your life has been so far. The trail had felt like a lifetime. Then there are the extreme questions. What was the hardest, nicest, easiest, favorite, least favorite part of the trail? First, this was not how the trail was perceived by me. Secondly, answering these questions seemed to trivialize the whole experience. Just because something is not the most or best does not diminish its value in the least.Sometimes my mistake would be to think that these questions indicated real interest and begin a tale about the trail. But it was apparent that most folks just wanted a simple soundbite. Something they could neatly file away. That was sad, and it frustrated me. The few folks who really did want to hear, my past hiking companions, were far away and too busy. This was a tale I truly wanted to share but it was too long and too complex, and I didn¢t even know how to tell it. The inability to really share it brought me profound unhappiness at times and is one of the driving factors in the desire to return to the trail. On the trail people already understood.In fact, one reason for wanting to return to camp was to share stories of the trail with the kids on the Voyageurs treks. Oddly the subject didn¢t come up very often and when it did, my co-leader seemed to tire of the tales quickly. Once again my attempt to share had been stifled. Surprisingly, during the summer of 2006, the kids out on Voyageurs did ask questions. Different co-leaders were being trained almost every week. Finally there was an interested audience.Writing this journal helped too. It started in November 2004 after the fall show. By the end of January 2005, I had gotten about half way, and then it was show time again. Now here it is in October of 2006, and I am finishing it up. Two years. Wow. It feels good to be getting it done. Many people dream of hiking the AT. It's tough to find the time. There are so many obligations we all have. There so many excuses not to go. The only thing I can say is if you want to hike it you just have to pick a time and do it. Not everyone finishes but I doubt anyone regrets it.Now it¢s time for this guy to get out on the Pacific Crest Trial in 2007. A 2,650 mile trail from Mexico to Canada through California, Oregon and Washington. Keep on trukin'.