[at-l] Happy 5th Anniversary, Class of 1996

[blisterfree@surfree.com (Brett Tucker)]

Happy 5th Anniversary, Class of 1996!

Whether you began your trek on this date, like me - An April Fool, or if
this flowering first day of the month serves merely to aggravate your case
of Springer Fever, congratulations. We walked a long, long way, you may
recall. 5 million steps, I believe it was, or some factor thereof depending
on stride and personal motivation.

Remember how, at the time, we thought the journey would never end?
Thru-hiking: mission impossible it seemed. As the days, months, and seasons
wore on, slowly, subtly, humidly, we felt we'd never get there. Or perhaps
we never wanted to. For whatever reason, that season seemed infinite, its
culmination perceivable only in some dizzy, adrenaline-drunk portion of our
collective hiker psyche. The Trail pressed ever onward, its canopy of trees
stretching ever upward, their sheltering, nurturing arms reaching out to us,
filling our lungs with oxygen and our souls with deep-rooted pride.

But The Day finally did come. It rained, we pained, and then there was
Maine. That final white blaze, the rock cairn, the sign. (Or perhaps the
blaze we finally reached, no matter the place or time.) There we were,
incredulous, overwhelmed with emotion. Tugging at our hearts: the duality of
relief and disbelief, of exhaustion and euphoria, of fear and love. We
feared leaving a place which had engendered such love within us; feared
staying in a land so long so far from the one which had always shown such
love _for_ us. Muddy yet radiant, we at last found our way off that moody
apex, found our final coin-op washing machine. And we made our way home.

Five years gone now. An eternity, it seems. Time enough for hiking 20,000
miles, from sea to shining sea and purple mountains majesty six times over,
had we so chosen. (Likely none of us did.) Time enough for hairstyles to
change, for beards to ebb and flow. For careers to rise and fall, and money
to come and go. For the mad mad mad mad mad world to take a breather... and
then press on, 'round yonder bend and out of sight.

Five years means nothing to a red spruce tree. You remember, the little guy
sprawled flat out on his evergreen hide, up at Katahdin's highest flank?
There, the weather still races in like a lion, and out like a flogged and
balky sheep. But our hardy tree holds fast. Thinks long-term. Grows taller,
stronger, wiser, with imperceptible slowness it seems to us. Yet nature's
eye perceives these changes - just as that eye witnessed our evolution into
distance hikers when all we could see was the dirt, discomfort and hunger.

What have these last five years meant to us? What changes have they brought
about in our lives? In body, mind, and spirit? Who's measuring this change?
Us? "Them?" Maybe us with the unsolicited help of them? Who are they, for
that matter? If they aren't the forests, the hills, the creeks, our Trail
calling ever so gently, then perhaps today is a good day for reflection. On
this fifth anniversary of our walk of wonder, let's remember how we made our
way in the natural world: one step a time, one foot in front of the other.
All a well-lived life asks of us is nothing but the same.

There's a white blaze up ahead, and we're still not done walking...

- blisterfree, GA-ME '96