Eating Elephants

“What was your favorite part about it man?”

I’ve been back from the trail for a total of three months and fourteen days. In my time of trying to nestle back into a normalized reality of civilization, I’ve been asked this question a couple of times. Not an easy question to answer even in the slightest way. I’ve found it difficult to truly express all the endeavors I came across on the trail, and when I do try to tell a story in person, well I’ll be honest, my story telling is shit. Truth be told, in many ways I feel as though I’m still recovering from the trail. From the permanent impact it had on my life and whatever life I may lead going forward. I’m still putting together pieces of the puzzle, arranging some sort of chronological data base of the beautiful, the terrible, the happy, the sad, the magic, and the tragedy.

When I sit to contemplate about it, the trail mirrored a replica of life. She had her highs and her lows. I sat down this Christmas Eve evening, attempting my best impressions on Dave Grohl’s acoustic riff of the song Everlong. I had made a promise to myself, whilst scaling up the side of a waterfall, when I got home I would learn that song. It’s a difficult song to practice, and every time I place my fingers on the chords, my pinky feels like I threw a tiny grenade in and blew it to smitherines. However, nothing grants such satisfaction when you can take something beautiful and add your own little spirit into it. Suddenly feeling like you’ve created your own Mona Lisa, or Starry Night with all the practice beginning to pay off.

I’ve always wanted to create, to lead a life of creativity that someday might inspire some younger generation. Maybe give a speech that had an everlasting effect on some kid. Inspiring them to dig themselves out of whatever struggles they may be facing because when the day is finished and you haven’t quite put your best foot forward, tomorrow is always only a sunrise away. Since my return home, life’s been a little less than exciting by comparison to wandering through the woods. Every time I do speak about the trail it’s conjured through ticky small talk. The questions are coming less and less frequently about my own personal pilgrimage, I do not however go a day without thinking about it.

As I sat down and plucked away at my six string instrument, a moment flashed into my mind from the trail. I had just reached Harper’s Ferry, the “hikers halfway point”and also a neat little town in West Virginia, developing a taste for celebration to end the day. After all, I wasn’t just talking about it, I was doing the damn thing. I had written a blog, had a cup of coffee and took the time to introspectively reflect on my progress and the progress still yet to come. I could feel this eidetic sense of the day, accomplishing far more than I set out to, yet still the job wasn’t done. I craved the manifestation of even more, envisioning myself on top of Mount Katahdin. As the day was coming to an end I had found a guitar stowed away at the hostel I was staying at, a common sighting in most hostels along the trail. So I picked up the guitar, walked out onto the porch and began to strum melodies that I knew, right there in that little dingy town of West Virginia. Corny right? It gets better.

After a solid fifteen minutes of some finger exercises a man walked out and sat down next to me, introducing himself and telling me a bit about how and why he was staying there. This man, in my mind, resembled the epitome of West Virginia with a couple of teeth missing and a casual southern twang to his voice. After all the jokes my buddies and I had contrived over the years, I couldn’t help but think “you’ve probably slept with a couple of your cousins haven’t you?” I apologize for my judgmental thoughts but hey, initially I wanted to be left to my own devices at the end of an amazing day. Creatively attempting to spin my own riffs on the guitar.

“You mind if I play a little?” The man asked me. I gave him the guitar and listened to him swing a couple of impressive power chords. After about five minutes he handed the guitar back to me and said “let’s play together!” Feeling a bit confused, I mean there was only one guitar. Grabbing a random stick off the ground and a salt bucket filled to the brim (which we accidentally spilled all over the place) he told me to play something that I knew and he would join in with a percussive sound. That night was the first time I began to figure out how to finger pluck along some sort of arpeggio scale. With a rhythm section and a melody we began to mess around with different ideas, passing joints back and forth and a lethal Long Island Iced Tea he had concocted.

Looking back on that night and the jam session we had together, I reminisce with a fond memoir of the tunes that were created. We didn’t do it for fame or recognition in front of thousands of fans screaming in jubilant unison. We were two complete strangers that had very little in common, relating through our bare minimum of knowledge about music. All the preconceived notions about who this person was flew out the window and we were able to communicate through a guitar and a measly salt bucket.

So many evenings were spent with strangers in this fashion, opening a can of intellectual creativity. Music was played on the trail via random instruments, incredible stories were divulged under the influence, or in complete sobriety. We were living wild and free, spurring on a liberating lifestyle that I feel incredibly lucky to have partaken in. When I got to the end of my trip, I was mentally and physically exhausted, weary from all that I had been through. Despite the fatigue and the fact that I have no immediate interest in doing another long distance hike, I wouldn’t trade the experience away for anything. It was one of my greatest lessons about life and how to overcome challenges, asking for help when it was needed but also instilling in me the courage to figure things out on my own as well.

Merry Christmas to anyone who reads this and a very specific Merry Christmas to those that shared a piece of the trail with me, even if it was for an hour or two. People came into my life along that trail exactly when I needed them to. I truly could not have achieved such a feat without any of you.

“Friendship is the only cement that will ever hold the world together.” — Woodrow Wilson