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
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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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