7/27/17 -- Miles are no longer viable markers of progress made in life -- Brooklyn, NY
Dear Andrew, I am writing this letter not by hand in the fading light of a slowly sleeping sun, but rather, on the harsh, clean, clear keys of a computer. I am in one of the biggest cities in the world sitting on a futon that my friends profusely apologized for being so uncomfortable. I reminded them that I have been sleeping on rocks and dirt for the past four months. As the above picture might suggest, I have done it. On July 21st, I woke up at 3am to hike the ten miles into Baxter State Park to the base of Katahdin with my friend Chicago. He's a tall, youthful, vibrant college kid who hates that people first identify him as tall. We met in the very first week and have encountered each other throughout the entire trail, so it only seemed fitting to finish together. Plus he stuck with me during the 100 mile wilderness when I had a dramatic bout of stomach flu and spent all day crawling an excruciating seven miles, and I can assure you, I was not pleasant to be with. As we neared the summit of the last mountain, the final few miles, I felt calm, blank, perhaps a little empty. "I have two miles left on the Appalachian Trail," I told myself. "I have almost hiked the entire Appalachian Trail. I walked here from GEORGIA. I have been walking every day for four months and this is the last one." But no matter how much I muttered to myself under my breath while day hikers stared at me in confusion, I couldn't really make it sink in. It was another mountain to climb, another day to hike, one foot in front of the other as it always had been. When I saw the summit in the distance, I started to run and tears welled in my eyes. I was relieved, if I could sob at the summit this whole thing about knowing what to feel would really be a hell of a lot easier. But I didn't sob. I reached the top and sat down with Chicago in silence. There weren't any words for the occasion. Instead we ravenously ate a pie; as always, food is much more tangible than the culmination of a lengthy spiritual quest which turned up more questions than answers. A few days earlier a fresh southbound hiker had asked me: "So what's your biggest revelation from being out on the trail?" I answered: "That there are no big revelations." Everyone chuckled. It is a chuckle-worthy way of evading the question, but it is also the truth. I'm still the same Laura I was when I left on March 17th, because I always will be. But now I'm also Lobo, and I've accrued countless tiny experiences, thoughts, and feelings that add up to what I suppose the professionals call: "personal growth." I thought about all of this while we climbed down the mountain. I thought about what I had learned, and who I had become, and where I was going from here -- and then Chicago said that his Mom could take us to Chipotle and I mostly thought about that. I woke up and walked each and every day for four months and four days. And then one day I finished, and I didn't walk anymore. My feet are relieved, my mind is confused, and my stomach demands bread products as constantly as possible. But even as I funnel bagels, donuts, and cookies into my mouth at regular two hour intervals, even now that I'm no longer known as "gross" by the children of America, and even now that I can sit and read and write and think about something beyond my basic survival needs--I think I might miss it. But I guess that's why life is long enough to take on plenty more crazy and ill-advised quests. Love, Laura
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7/16/17 -- Mile 2075 -- Monson, Maine
Dear Andrew, I have now walked over 2000 miles and everyone I meet has one question. "How has it been?" they ask, eyes wide with wonder at what I can only assume is my clearly radiating wisdom. This really means: "What secrets of the forest have you uncovered and how do I do that too?" I smile with a twinkle in my eye and look slightly past them into the distance. "Amazing," I say. They smile and nod, but this really means: "I could give you the long answer but I'm kind of trying to get to Katahdin and you're the eighth person to ask me that today." But amazing is not the right word. A dog wearing a backwards cap while riding a skateboard, or that picture of Obama jumping out of an airplane -- that's amazing. Is there a word for: 1. I've walked more than 2000 miles and I'm so tired that I can barely pretend to be a normal human in this conversation, but of course, yes: 2. This has changed my life, but not in the way you imagine (life lessons accrued on mountaintops amongst the auburn sunset of a crisp summer evening), it's more like: 3. Everything is different now, but mostly everything is the same, and it's hard to express it in words but if it were a picture there would probably be a wolf in it, and: 4. Even as I yearn to be done, I know that as soon as I am back in the safety of warm walls, soft couches, and routine showers I will miss this terribly. I haven't discovered one big truth that changed everything, I don't know what the trees whisper when they sway in the breeze, I'm not exactly sure who I will be when this is over. But I have lived more consciously and vividly in my own experience, I am at home in my own skin, I have sunk into the depths of the thoughts that swarm when there is no noise to drown them out, and I have kept walking. Today I begin the "100 mile wilderness," the final stretch before Katahdin. As the name implies: no towns, no public roads, and lots of mosquitoes. I'm sure it can only be described as amazing. Talk to you on the other side of that last big ol' mountain, Laura 7/6/17--Mile 1891--Gorham, New Hampshire
Dear Andrew, I could tell that the infamously intense White Mountains had taken their toll on me when a small girl clutching her father's hand asked in a surprisingly accusatory voice: "Do you ever shower?" I stopped and laughed. "I haven't in a long time," I told her. I was covered with dried mud flakes, swollen bug bites, and multicolored bruises, not to mention the musty and deeply unpleasant odor that only comes from three straight days of bone-chilling rain. "That's a thru-hiker," her father told her, as if I were a Lobo in a zoo. "That's what they smell like. Maybe that'll be you one day." "Gross!" she shrieked. So here I am, mere miles away from entering Maine, officially known as "gross" by the small children of America. The White Mountains of New Hampshire were indeed the most wholly challenging mountains I have ever climbed. I'm no longer walking -- shocking, I know -- I'm rock climbing vertically up miles and miles of jagged rock. I'm traversing exposed ridges above tree line in 70 mph winds while dodging snap thunderstorms. I'm seeing the highest peaks of the northeast, I'm hiking in the clouds. It's hard. It's the hardest part of the whole trail thus far. I'm tired, everything hurts all the time, and there's never enough peanut butter. The end is close but not close enough, I'm itching to be done so that small girls stop calling me "gross." The immensity of what I've done, the miles I've walked and the sights I've seen -- I wish there were words but I can't find them, I wish there were pictures but my decrepit iPhone 4 can never get the exposure right. And so I come to the same conclusion that I reach at the end of every long, sweaty, arduous day, after I've eaten my crunchy instant rice and before I fall into a deep blank sleep: I'll keep walking. If every letter seems to end this way, it is because every thought ends this way (or with something about peanut butter). Your Gross Sister, Laura |
LettersThese are the letters that Laura has sent her brother over the course of her hike. They are faithfully and painstakingly transcribed in their entirety. They are meant to keep people updated on how many facts she has learned about trees. Archives
July 2017
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