A migratory bird
Posted on | January 29, 2010 | Comments Off
Billy Goat redux. I am become a migratory bird.
April. J J heads north from Campo.
I knew the decision I would make when I felt the emotion on seeing Chipper’s photographs. Smiling hikers. My tribe. I spent very little time with any of the hikers in the pictures. Yet we are bound. Forever. Without ever talking about it. It is the experience and the people who are drawn to the experience.
Oh the lovers I have seen on the trail: Chipper and Jeff, and the two who serenaded each other as I napped nearby. And the Saufleys.
It’s hard. And this year might be especially difficult with the fires near Wrightwood and what they left behind.
Take a look at this picture.
“There wasn’t much of it, but trail it was. I was happier than I had been all day and gave a war whoop to celebrate. There was a pleasant creek close by and I found just enough mostly flat, dry ground, out of the way of widowmakers, to pitch my tarp on.”
Only a long distance hiker would think the image and the words belong together. And look at my picture below. I was miserable under that sun. And in danger along a narrow twisting highway. And I’m happy at the end of it. I am with the tribe. Look at Chipper and her smile. Hiker women.
I’m listening to this as I’m writing:
Life is such a rip-snorting adventure. I have decided to follow my heart. Where it leads. How do I tell Elaine?
Walk well. God is love. Yeah!
