Finding My Way Home

Riff-Raff at the Birdcage, photo of a photo 2010

Finding My Way Home

The following is a newly updated version of the preface to my book that used to be called Climbing the Switchbacks to Heaven. The book itself is nearing completion of the first draft and will soon be in for some serious editing. If this process is anything like the editing of films where 25 minutes will be cut down to 4 to 8 minutes of video, then were in for a wild ride. Currently the project has 365 pages. Time will tell if I will be able to stay present enough to get it done.

Preface

It’s March 5^th 2011 and I am back at Rob Bird’s place in Dalton Massachusetts for the night. Life’s events brought me here for some reflection and I found it to be a very welcoming, heartwarming place; it’s a lot like being home, but there are less distractions. Rob came home a few minutes after I arrived and we exchanged hellos with a familial hug. He has very much become my Trail Dad. Being here brings back many memories of the trail and the people who have been part of my trail experience. Telling stories here reminds me of why this book needs to be written. We spoke at the kitchen table with cigarette smoke hovering around us and drinking coffee for about an hour before moving to the living room for some much needed R & R.

The first thing I did when I walked in was open the photo album labeled “Family” that he has on his kitchen table. This is one of the little “icing on the cake” things that really separates Rob’s Birdcage from the other hostels and friendlies on the trail. The pages are lined with photos of every hiker that has visited and stayed at least one night in the past year. Each of us who were photographed leave a note with name, address and sometimes even a phone number, as well as a thank you note to Rob capturing our experience here. All the smiles and little notes are uplifting in and of themselves. His walls are also wallpapered with photos, pencil drawings and remembrances of those who left a piece of their heart as they continued their adventures. I am grateful to be able to share more time and my experiences with him.

We talked about who we’ve seen and heard from and caught up on the whereabouts of those we knew in common and sharing stories of some that the other may have never met. The room was filled with laughter as I recounted some of the trials of hiking, especially through Maine. We both enjoyed the discussion of river fords, which included Deadman’s death defying acrobatic fallen tree tight rope “walk” in the dark, my moment of clarity and anger, and how Stud-muffin and Dry Clean had to swim across the same river hours later because of the torrential down pour. 

We remembered people, personalities and classic trail moments. It is really the perfect setting for writing this. There’s a post-it note on the refrigerator where I scribed “RIFF-RAFF!” months ago along with the post-its of others. It is a cozy place and begs me to write about it. In the living room framed just above the couch is an actual white blaze painted on tree bark from a tree that had fallen on the trail. If these walls could talk; I can only imagine the laughter, the tears, the heart-ache, and joy they would be able to share. This is a place of love, of understanding, and of hope. An approximate 45-50 days from Katahdin, nestled in the small trail town, it is the epitome of Trail Magic.

I realize today that there are many more stories that will never be told of others’ experiences and the time they spent doing something that I consider an amazing feat; that many start, some never finish, and others still are either too comfortable or imprisoned by life that they never even consider or attempt it. The Appalachian Trail is more than a national historic trail; it is a place where a certain type of history is written. In a sense it lives and breathes as we do. Words are etched on the hearts of those who dare. They take with them feelings of warmth and comfort and a feeling of success, accomplishment and an “I can” attitude. Our walk teaches us many things and one lesson that reverberates in my head daily is that “the Trail will provide” in that you can’t always get what you want, but you do get what you need.

Ironically, this feeling is one of the feelings that have lead me to the discovery of and the understanding of what I understand to be what the Buddha meant when talked about creating our own suffering. How by living in the past or future and by forming attachments to people and things we feel sorrow or loss, again and again. Walking the path has given me a glimpse through the narrow doorway that is the present moment. It wasn’t until my monkey mind had exhausted itself, that I found some quiet and solace. It has been the long journey since that has helped me to understand better how that peace came to be in my life. Finding it is one thing. Understanding it and being able to foster it and “step behind the waterfall” in other areas of our lives is a completely different undertaking.    

We become familiar with “Springer Fever”, a condition where 2,000 milers suffer through a feeling of longing and emptiness while they daydream of a return to the Trail each spring as their start date anniversary approaches; a condition that many hear about and few will ever truly understand. It is probably best likened to the feeling of love lost and how we associate sights, smells and sounds with loved ones who were the “the good friends we lost along the way.” Bob Marley continues to sing “in this great future you can’t forget your past”. We, the individuals who worked day in and day out towards the goal of reaching the summit of Katahdin by way of the “approach trail” to Baxter, understand the value of each painstaking step. We understand what each represents and will not forget. This feeling is more than a feeling of loss, it is the embodiment of “Don’t be sad that it’s over, smile because it happened.” It is no coincidence that this is what the sign over the door here at the Birdcage reads.

After having completed the journey, I feel like maybe I ate the blue pill. Can I ever return to society and live a life of normalcy? Where will my heart take me next? What am I to do with this “sickness”? Is there a cure? “More cow bell” won’t do it, I’m sure. I hope that writing about this adventure does more than help to fill the gap in my life. I hope it inspires others to find a way to fill their own.

May these pages reach out and touch the souls of those who need the inspiration to take the first step. For those who have it, I hope these pages will help to alleviate the symptoms of “Springer Fever” and reinvigorate your soul. And for those of you who are willing to accept your reality; maybe you are sitting in a cubicle at work, maybe you have a family to support, maybe you are still in school, maybe you are a dreamer, or maybe you are just a tiny part of the herd each morning on the expressway going out to pasture; maybe you feel stuck, maybe you are reading this to live vicariously through me; I hope you find what you are looking for, but I hope you understand that whatever you choose in life it won’t be easy, but make sure whatever you choose, that it is worth it! Get out there and make your life something to write about. Go out there and do something great! “Peace be the journey.”    

Practice?

 We often use the word practice when we associate ourselves with meditation. People sometimes say things like "In my meditation practice I discovered" or "I have been practicing meditation for several years". 

In music, or sports, we also use the term practice. As a kid I might have said,"I need a ride to soccer practice" or my mother might have said, "Hurry up, we're going to be late to soccer practice." It stands to reason that when we practice something, we learn and subsequently use repetitively the skills necessary to improve our ability to play. 

The soccer game is played. The musical instrument is played. I have hardly ever called using a musical instrument practice. Maybe I should have practiced more when I was in band class, but then I had this bashfulness about how loudly the horrible sounds coming from the trumpet were. I prefer to just pick up my guitar and play. Even if I am just strumming a single new chord or picking through a new scale, I just call it playing. Playing is fun. Practice sounds gruling. in college sometimes we would have doubles. Sometimes if we had a bad game where effort was lacking our coach would make us run ladders which would give us a bad taste for practice. Or learning to trap the ball by softly recurving it with our knee or chest, and we would do so over and over and over until our body was bruised and sore. We would subject ourselves to the repetitive nature of learning to improve our abilities and these skills would then help us when we played in the next game. So, one question that comes to mind here is, "Why don't we play life?" Or maybe we do. Let's take a look. 

First what is playing really?When we are kids, we go outside to play with our friends. Sometimes there are rules to the games we play like Red Rover or Red Light Green Light and sometimes we just dig in the dirt or climb trees or roll down the hill in the yard. Sometimes we play board games, and other times we find ourselves playing bored games. And if we do play a bored game, then we are no longer bored because now we have an activity. 

Here is an example. When we were in elementary school our mother decided to take us on a road trip with our pop up camper towed behind an old Chevy station wagon. It took us several days to go from NY to FL with myriad misadventures and challenges. The engine overheated and we needed to get towed and repaired and then one of the tires went flat, and the fuel filter clogged, but that's a separate story. The point I want to make about the road trip is that we had these road games to play. One game was to count the different state license plates that we observed and we kept a list with tallies for each out of state plate. Sometimes we would look for the alphabet on road signs, places of business, cars and even on the different license plates. Someone would see the letter A and they would say the letter and where they saw it. I see A in the word Carolina, B on the Buick passing us on the left, C Carolina again, D on the license plate on that Chevy and so on and so forth. We would occupy our minds to help pass the time so that we wouldn't fight in the back seat. We knew that our minds had a tendency to wander around or stir up emotions and then someone would complain about the heat or the window being open or closed and then we would argue about who was going to write the Mad Libs etc. 

Anyway, these days boredom is something that sedom occurs in life. If I am not happy with my current activity in the moment I choose to find something to do. I am not worrying about being in the next moment, so there isn't any anticipation or angst that goes with that. Sometimes I still think about the past and sometimes I think, how did I get to this thought by trying to connect the thoughts backwards, to observe the oddities of my mind, but as I meditate more, I find less of this happening which is actually a relief.

Well, maybe meditation is practice for life? And I am not really saying that life is game, but maybe I am saying that it is; just a little. Nope. Scratch that. Meditation is life. And, it helps us get really good at living.

In meditation we note our thinking. When we sit, we notice the thinking and observe that the monkey mind is doing that thing again. Sometimes we analyze it and maybe thinking about our thinking is the beginning, but it's still thinking. So, sometimes I play the game, "How long can I keep my mind blank?" This is hard because once you think to count the seconds the mind is no longer blank so there's a difficulty in keeping track. One good way to get rid of the racing mind or the thinking mind is to narrow your focus. We all only have so much attention so if we use that attention to feel, or to sense, we have less of it to devote to words being played across the strings in our brains. And while some of those words are beautiful and melodic, most of them are like a beginner screeching the bow across the violin.

Here is an example of focus: while you are sitting there reading this, "How often has your mind wandered? Are you focused on the words on the page? Or, are you immersed fully in this blog? Did you wonder if you left the coffee pot on? Have you thought, this is a waste of time? Sure this Vanagoonies fella is just ranting away again, but maybe there's a point? Is he going to get there? The more you narrow your focus on reading and understanding the words, the less you are aware of the color of the page. It's the same way with breathing. The more you focus your attention on each natural breath, feeling the air rush into your nostrils, or the pressure building inside your lungs, or the rising and falling of your chest or the feeling of pressure on your butt as you sit on that seat, the less attention you have left for your mind to run away with your thoughts. You stop telling yourself the stories you create about the people around you. You stop telling yourself the stories about yourself. You stop blaming yourself. You stop shoulding all over yourself. And eventually you just stop. Stop everything and just be. Be what you are. Be human, but also be being. 

Sometimes we're all so busy living and we forget to live like we're dying and that's what life really is about. Dying. We're all going to die and we never know when. So die a good death. Die a well lived life. Live a life that is worthy of death. Make your life matter. Be. Experience. Breathe and pay attention to each breath as it comes and goes. Feel. Touch. Taste. I mean, fully taste. Savor the details of the coffee in your cup. Don't just slam it and run. Smell. Is that a flower? Is that something burning? Mmmmm bacon. Be curious. See. Immerse yourself in your surroundings. Look at nature. Look at the leaves. See the clouds. Live. Be. Be alive for while you are living, you will be able to be. Whatever changes death brings, may they Be also. 

Namaste