Just add stamps, and it's on its way! |
I remember the Long Trail being a most wonderful hike. Everything went remarkably well, I met dozens of really great people, and I had plenty of time to wander in the woods in the company of my thoughts. My journal tells me I was worried about the future with poor prospects for employment; I suffered from a handful of days of gastrointestinal distress; I tore up my feet at the end of the first week and had problem blisters for most of the last week; I got sick of the attitudes of the party crowd on the AT. But even then, I knew the complaints were minor in comparison to all the good that was going on. Every day that I hiked in meditative silence seemed like a gift. Even just two weeks of hiking had me totally addicted to the nomad lifestyle again. Coming home was hard.
I guess it wasn't all sunshine and roses on the Long Trail. |
I've been in Keene for the past three and a half months, settled into a routine, and feeling better than after my other two big hikes, but things are still different. I have two jobs, one real one and one where I am my own boss, but there's still lots of uncertainty ahead. I can't just follow white blazes. I can't even follow a herd path. I'm forging ahead on my own, hoping I end up where I want to go. It's exciting, but it takes all of my time and all of my brainpower.
Sometimes I worry that devoting so much of my time to programming is taking away all of my will to write the blog, or to wander away into the woods and explore. In the past few months, my creative impulses for writing have been drained into the programming of iPhone apps, as has much of my time for hiking. I just promise myself (and Yvonne) that by working so frantically now, I'll have more time for other things in the winter and summer.
So I take a bit of time now and then to go for a quick walk up Monadnock, or to write here. But mostly it's work work work. The nice thing is, I still enjoy it. Just like any of those trails where my journals only tell of the pain, I still see plenty of good times.