3 August

Erin and I just got back yesterday from hiking the Laurel Highlands Trail. We did all 70 miles, north to south, in eight days. It rained most days, but we got extremely lucky in that we only got seriously wet once - the rest of the time we got to watch the weather from our shelter. Being in the woods is interesting because I often go in expecting enlightenment - you know, the romantic notion of being out in nature, having time to soak in all the simple lessons that it can teach you... And there is a lot of truth to that, but really, the bulk of the time when you're hiking, you're just walking through the woods - for hours and hours, and if I was thinking anything, it was "Wow, that orange fungus looks like a sea anemone" or trying to figure out what percentage of the days hike we had already finished if we started around mile-marker 58, had just passed 54, and the shelter area was a little bit past 47. But I think, in a way, I needed all that space to clear my head, and by day six, I actually found myself doing some thinking about things other than my immediate environment. Not that I found enlightenment or anything, but here are three simple (and fairly nebulous) little things I thought about life and how I live it during the last couple days on the trail - if you find them interesting, I'm glad. If not, go take your own hike.

1. I often gravitate toward lofty goals, sucked in by the romance of them, without always thinking about what it actually means to do them. I want to run a marathon (I did, Pittsburgh, 2003), I want to hike 70 miles, I want to make a record, etc... This allows me to do some things I wouldn't otherwise do, but it also sometimes takes my focus away from the actual doing of them, if that makes sense. I get caught up in my idealized goal and stop paying attention to the journey - the process - all the life it takes to get to where I'm going.

2. Sometimes, when the reality of working towards the goal becomes difficult, this lack of focus on enjoying the process makes me wonder what I was thinking in the first place, and leaves me much more prone to quitting.

3. When Erin and I were debriefing during the last couple days on the trail, I realized I could not remember significant portions of the earlier days of the hike. All I had was a feeling about what they were like rather than specific memories. When we talked about the hike, we saw the whole eight days kind of as a single entity. There were really good parts, and pretty tough parts, but it all flowed together to make one larger experience. And maybe this is contradicting #1, but I guess I wish I saw life more as a big picture - It's filled with lofty goals, and little everyday experiences to try to enjoy as they pass, but in the end it fades together and some things get lost, and some things make a lasting impression, but really it's the patterns that stand out. It's the things that you do over and over again that matter.