Welcome to my blog on paddling the NFCT. My purpose for keeping this is, in a sense, to take you all along with me...for you to be my "Wilson".
On a practical level, this will be a way for friends and family to keep tabs on me in the event they want to join me for part of the journey. And so I'm hoping this expedites communication rather than layer it.
This trip was originally going to be with a partner, Tom. But since he couldn't go, I'm embracing the challenge of paddling most of it alone. Being alone means that I will have to dial back risk taking even more, especially on rivers. But that's ok. The Outlaw Jose Wales said "A man's gotta know his limitations" (said between gritted teeth) and, at age 53, I know mine on water.
It's also part of an experiment of mine in being alone. I've always found meaning and beauty in shared experiences, by turning to the person I'm traveling with immediately to confirm something to be exciting or beautiful. I don't know whether that's because I'm a very social being, or have had little sense of self, but I know that traveling alone I tend to internalize a great deal more since I'm not verbalizing or immediately sharing everything. It can be richer in several ways. I'm just habituated to want to share experiences immediately and tend to feel lonely when I can't. Like if a tree falls in a woods and I don't have a companion to hear it with, it didn't really happen.
I have to actively work to experience beauty and pleasure for myself, to let that glow inside me and not turn immediately to give it away. I have to learn to enjoy myself. It will be very difficult not to have my daughter with me when the sky turns dramatic or colorful in the alpenglow of evening.
As someone who has taken care of others always, from school to summer work to parenting to home life, for the past 22 years the only times I haven't done that are the annual river trips I've done with friends David and Edgar. Always on those trips, I'm not ready for it to be over when we reach the take out.
Which is the biggest reason for me to make this trip. Every year, as the take out hoves into view, I'm saddened a little. I know from years of guiding 3 day trips, that at the end of three days the clients are just beginning to unwind, to downshift, and I see them looking wistfully back up the trailhead, longing for more.
Life can be lived very differently than we choose to live it here in the United States. I experienced that deeply on the Appalachian Trail. I want to live life at a pace that feels right to me, to drop the frenetic, rodent-like way I have to work. I want to take what the day gives me, to paddle like hell when I need to, to be a lounge lizard on gravel bars, swim in the deep holes, fish, get a pint and a burger in towns, and reconnect to the basic goodness I know to be in people. I want to write...to use the space and movement and to let my thoughts slow and chase them down thoroughly.
More importantly, I want to live in, sleep with, breathe and touch the Earth again. I want to feel the kinship of white pines, the implacable power of geology and water and wind. I want to wake up to the pine siskins and fall asleep to the wood thrush. I want to breathe deeply and slowly the balsam fir, the spruce scented forest, to feel grateful for a Hemlock in a rain storm, and for birch when I light a fire. I want to make my fragile way amongst the powerful forces. I want to take Mary Oliver's advice and "Let the soft animal of (my) body love what it loves." I want to feel the sun and wind and rain on my face, the pine duff under my feet.
I want to remember all the good people I've been so privileged to travel with. I will carry you all in my heart at different times.
I know from experience that when travelling like this a given day can have many episodes and be an emotional roller coaster. I'm ready to ride it again.
I am interested to meet myself again out there, and see how well experience will serve me. I hope to be less afraid, and experience more pleasure borne of memory and knowledge and relationships that I didn't have before.
So I hope, with my daughter's tutelage, to upload vides from the trip onto this sight. Not for ego's sake...I wouldn't want to see my belly hanging below my life jacket while I pontificate...but simply to let people know I'm ok and where they can find me.
I will most likely not make it to Maine. It's not about the distance, it's about the time. Time to air my head out and just be. I sure could use some of that.
On a practical level, this will be a way for friends and family to keep tabs on me in the event they want to join me for part of the journey. And so I'm hoping this expedites communication rather than layer it.
This trip was originally going to be with a partner, Tom. But since he couldn't go, I'm embracing the challenge of paddling most of it alone. Being alone means that I will have to dial back risk taking even more, especially on rivers. But that's ok. The Outlaw Jose Wales said "A man's gotta know his limitations" (said between gritted teeth) and, at age 53, I know mine on water.
It's also part of an experiment of mine in being alone. I've always found meaning and beauty in shared experiences, by turning to the person I'm traveling with immediately to confirm something to be exciting or beautiful. I don't know whether that's because I'm a very social being, or have had little sense of self, but I know that traveling alone I tend to internalize a great deal more since I'm not verbalizing or immediately sharing everything. It can be richer in several ways. I'm just habituated to want to share experiences immediately and tend to feel lonely when I can't. Like if a tree falls in a woods and I don't have a companion to hear it with, it didn't really happen.
I have to actively work to experience beauty and pleasure for myself, to let that glow inside me and not turn immediately to give it away. I have to learn to enjoy myself. It will be very difficult not to have my daughter with me when the sky turns dramatic or colorful in the alpenglow of evening.
As someone who has taken care of others always, from school to summer work to parenting to home life, for the past 22 years the only times I haven't done that are the annual river trips I've done with friends David and Edgar. Always on those trips, I'm not ready for it to be over when we reach the take out.
Which is the biggest reason for me to make this trip. Every year, as the take out hoves into view, I'm saddened a little. I know from years of guiding 3 day trips, that at the end of three days the clients are just beginning to unwind, to downshift, and I see them looking wistfully back up the trailhead, longing for more.
Life can be lived very differently than we choose to live it here in the United States. I experienced that deeply on the Appalachian Trail. I want to live life at a pace that feels right to me, to drop the frenetic, rodent-like way I have to work. I want to take what the day gives me, to paddle like hell when I need to, to be a lounge lizard on gravel bars, swim in the deep holes, fish, get a pint and a burger in towns, and reconnect to the basic goodness I know to be in people. I want to write...to use the space and movement and to let my thoughts slow and chase them down thoroughly.
More importantly, I want to live in, sleep with, breathe and touch the Earth again. I want to feel the kinship of white pines, the implacable power of geology and water and wind. I want to wake up to the pine siskins and fall asleep to the wood thrush. I want to breathe deeply and slowly the balsam fir, the spruce scented forest, to feel grateful for a Hemlock in a rain storm, and for birch when I light a fire. I want to make my fragile way amongst the powerful forces. I want to take Mary Oliver's advice and "Let the soft animal of (my) body love what it loves." I want to feel the sun and wind and rain on my face, the pine duff under my feet.
I want to remember all the good people I've been so privileged to travel with. I will carry you all in my heart at different times.
I know from experience that when travelling like this a given day can have many episodes and be an emotional roller coaster. I'm ready to ride it again.
I am interested to meet myself again out there, and see how well experience will serve me. I hope to be less afraid, and experience more pleasure borne of memory and knowledge and relationships that I didn't have before.
So I hope, with my daughter's tutelage, to upload vides from the trip onto this sight. Not for ego's sake...I wouldn't want to see my belly hanging below my life jacket while I pontificate...but simply to let people know I'm ok and where they can find me.
I will most likely not make it to Maine. It's not about the distance, it's about the time. Time to air my head out and just be. I sure could use some of that.
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