Re: [at-l] How the AT changed my life

["Thomas McGinnis" <tmcginnis@ucclan.state.in.us>]

>>> <Saunterer writes of the throughhiker's epiphany> 12/16/99 09:54PM >>>
It is by no means guaranteed that it will affect a thru-hiker in that way. 
<snip>
I remember a few leaving the trail without finishing because after this experience 'finishing' was no longer important to them.

Saunterer

*****And Sloetoe offers:
I wonder if this isn't the definition of "Maine Blues" — where you want the hiking to go on and on, but want the hike to end. That was me after the Whites/Mahoosucs and tourists and Hurricane David. It was really hard, a couple of times, to get out of bed, or to get up after a rest stop by a burbling stream, fall breeze quietly whooshing the leaves, a little storm of orange and red and yellow and brown, and that musky smell of autumn.....
If Maine weren't so beautiful, I wouldn't have gone on. (Just another thing to make a southbound trip tougher to complete. A tip o' the hat to SoBos everywhere.) If I didn't have "college" all arranged, cozy little school, cozy little dorm room 100 yards from a cozy little AYE-WHY-SEE-EEE (!!!), with girls girls girls (well, c'mon, I was 19 and without, ah, "companionship" for tooooo long) — if I didn't have these things arranged, I wouldn't have made it. If there _had_ been an "International AT" available, fully blazed or not (I did some joyous bushwhacking through Maine), I would have marched right over Katahdin and kept on going. My promise to myself, as I was picked up hitching out of Baxter, by a really cool lumberjack (summer)/jazz drummer (winter)/ father-type, was that if I saw a "Help Wanted" sign in a window whilst heading into East Millenocket (sp?), I would stop right there, live out of my bivy or a one-roomer, and git up money for the Pacific Crest (which I'd seen pictures of at the home of Jonathan SomethingOrOther, a new bank manager in Stratton, who'd hiked the northern 1000 of the PCT the year before).
Did this become a tale of "Live in the Moment"?? What was the question? What IS wanderlust? Is that the epiphany? Does this answer FallingWater's question of why we hike? Does wanderlust come when the urge to discover meets the confidence to travel after retiring the fear(s) of/from social conformity? Perhaps this is what separates the throughhiker from the section hiker: the throughhiker does not fear violating social conformity. Certain things no longer hold inviolate sway with the throughhiker: bathing every day, knowing where you'll sleep, shelter from the rain, refridgerating your food, hot and cold chlorinated water, a lock on the door, a freshly waxed car, getting the color of your clothes bright bright bright, having your hair _perfect_, keeping up on the lastest ______ anything! 
Again, I'm back to Datto's quoted quote from Flannery O'Conner: "Yee shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you odd."
Wow. After writing all this, I'm feeling like I oughta leave for Springer. Or that little town on the Mexican border. Right now.
If any of this connected with you, let me know, OK?

Have a really odd day,
Sloetoe



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