Trail

First of all, it's been harder to do the not buying anything thing than I previously imagined...  I had broken earbuds and couldn't listen to the televisions mounted on the elliptical machines at the Y, so I asked my husband to buy me some.  THAT was cheating, and I admit that.  Then, I went to the grocery store and realized that I had inadvertently purchased a magazine.  Okay, it didn't JUMP into my hands, it didn't sneak onto the checkout counter, it didn't cajole me into taking it home, but I bought it with the same thoughtless detachment that allowed me to amass a shocking collection of sundresses at the beginning of the summer.  Shocking, I tell you, how sundresses can just pile up.

I've been housebound most of the past week, solely because I feel paralyzed by the daunting task of finding temporary employment.  I don't even really want meaningful employment anymore, just something mindless, short and lucrative.  Or, if not lucrative, then at least something with a regular paycheck so that I can feel like I am doing something productive.  God, grant me productivity.  I'm a hot mess without it.

Yesterday, I went hiking with a friend.  Driving out to pick him up, I felt surprisingly content for the first time in over a month.  I was out of the house, I was on my way to do something with a friend and it struck me that this is what happiness has become to me now.  Has my life shrunk to such a small thing or is it just simplicity asserting itself?

We had planned on a short hike...more just a walk through the woods.  I had dressed stupidly for anything other than a leisurely stroll through a mall.  Jeans, for God's sake...I wore JEANS to hike in the humid Georgia air.  At least I remembered my hiking boots.  Thank goodness for that.  My friend insisted that the Kennesaw Mountain visitor's center was just a short walk away from the Illinois memorial on the battlefield (battlewoods?  battleglade? battleglen?), so we took the trail, visions of ice cold soda and gift shop tchotchkes in my head.  When we got to a road, I noticed that there was a sign that said "Visitor Center, 4mi" and started to think that maybe we had been wildly optimistic in our plan of taking a nice walk to an air conditioned park building followed by creamsicles and the purchasing of keychains.  It was not to be.  The 4 miles went up, up, up.  Atop the first clear rise, my friend looked at me and said "I messed up.  We're on Little Kennesaw Mountain.  And we're about to go up Kennesaw."  As with all things in my life, I realized that there is no way out but through.  Plus, I'm not a quitter.  If there's an end to the road I happen to be walking on, I will see it through no matter what the obstacle.  And here's the thing about my 10-plus mile mistaken double mountain hike in jeans: I loved it.  Sure, we were tired and covered in sweat.  Sure, we had to run back to the car to retrieve it before the park service had it towed.  Sure, it was way longer than I had anticipated.  Regardless, I loved it.

The past two summers, I have been hiking mountains with mixed success while employed at the single greatest job ever in the history of the world (Improv Acadia...look it up).  It was this summer that I realized just how much hiking suits me.  I love running, but I don't do races to win, just to see if I can finish them.  Similarly, I hike because I want to see if I can make it to the top.  And, because I'm pathologically unable to give up something I have committed myself to doing, I never turn back, even when it would have been wiser if I had.  Consider my ill-advised solo hike up Cadillac Mountain's West Face...in the rain.  I crawled on my hands and knees and belly up that trail, emerging on the summit with bloody hands, soaked through, crying.  But I damn well made it up that bitch trail.  Because I said I would.  Because I started it.  Because it was there.  Plus, like running, I like the accumulation of miles.  The only other times I have experienced such a gleeful tallying of miles was when I was on camp-sponsored canoe trips.  Ten miles of river is to ten miles of trail is to ten miles of urban asphalt...  The more milage I accrue, the happier I get.  For me, most definitely, the journey IS more important than the destination.  Especially considering the fact that the visitor center at Kennesaw turned out not to have creamsicles at all.