I have been home on the farm for a week, and memories from the trail bombard me continually as I re-adjust to my life at Cape Trib.
As I wake up at 3.00am to visit the toilet, I revel in the fact that I am walking from the bedroom to the bathroom, and not crawling out of a sleeping bag, into the freezing cold and peeing behind a bush. Each night at around 3.00 am for the last 2 weeks I have given thanks for my new circumstances. Comfort is something that many people take for granted. I probably will in time too, but at the moment, I appreciate each night as it comes.
I am still wearing my trail clothes as nothing else fits me, apart from the new pair of jeans I bought in Boston - extra small size. Everything else falls off me. I no longer have a bum (or butt, as the Americans would say) to hold them up and I still haven't had a chance to get to town to go shopping.
Friends in our community are asking me ' did you enjoy your time in the US?'. I still don't know how to answer this question. There was so much deprivation during our 6 month hike that 'enjoy' is not the right word. Not yet anyway. Maybe in 6 months time I will be able to say that I 'enjoyed' our time hiking for 177 days. What I answer is to describe a specific situation on the trail to them so that they can get a glimmer of understanding of what life was really like. Each time I am asked, I provide a different example of deprivation. I don't have to search for examples - they pop into my mind. Everywhere I look a stimulus provides another memory or story of our adventure where we have been pushed to the limit.
It is great to catch up with friends in the community after 6 months, and to find out the latest news. I have some idea of what I have missed through following my Facebook page on my mobile phone, with postings about the Cape Trib news. I am really enjoying linking up with the young women in the community again. Digby says it is a 'mother/daughter' relationship. They are great company and it makes me think about the young women I met on the trail, especially my 'warrior princesses', Scatters and Stucco, who by now are back in normal life too, and going by names of Kate and Carrie. They are both powerful role models and how I envy them and wish I was as confident and strong and fit when I was thirty. I laugh when Carrie tells me that they think of us as their heroes.
Walking the trail gave us time to re-examine our lifestyle to see what we wanted to keep and what to change. We decided that we did still want to live at Cape Tribulation, and to continue running our farm business, but we realised that we were not taking time to smell the roses. One resolution we made was that we would not only work, but also play and enjoy life. So we are going to be taking more time off away from the farm.
As we sort through our photos, I find myself wanting to share my experience - to stand up in front of people and speak about our experiences. Maybe I have a new career waiting to unfold as an after dinner motivational speaker!!
I promised myself that I would cook nutritious meals when I got home, after eating all that rubbish and preservatives. Looking through the recipe book tonight for a chicken recipe to make from scratch, I found Chicken Pot Pie. This was the trail name for a group of young people hiking the trail, who we met many times over the 6 months. I stopped cooking the recipe and started wondering - where are they now? What has happened to Tiny Dancer and Salty, two members Chicken Pot Pie. They were 'yellow blazers', and would walk a bit of the trail, then get a car ride to cover some of the distance and then hike a bit more. All the time Digby and I would be steadily walking, every step of the way. They would appear, disappear, then reappear. A completely different approach to the trail and to life. Just do the good bits, and skip the bits you don't want to do. And yet they were so fit, so keen, so young and good fun. What a pity that they would not be able to call themselves '2000 milers', the group that walks the 'whole trail'.
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