Sunday June 6th at 1am, writing in a motel room across from the train station in Bakersfield CA:
I may not be wearing toe-nail polish, but I do now realize that Buddhas wear anything including toe bruises, or they could be about to lose their right big toe-nail, or they are about to walk their own trail in whatever state, or shape, or color they are in at the moment.
I am lucky to be planning to hike the PCT this summer. The initial plan was to hike the whole thing, but since life happens and last minute logistics are not as easy as they seem, I planned to start a month later after the desert segment. I somehow miraculously scored a late cancellation permit from the PCTA, but then also during that month I somehow miraculously scored an acceptance to a Structural Engineering Master’s program for the fall. The plan became: start at Walker Pass and walk up through the Range of Light to see how far I can get in NorCal before hitting the textbooks on August 23rd.
Then about 6 weeks ago now, I slammed a big chunk of newly welded metal artwork directly on my own right big toe. Swollen and puffy, misshapen, black and bruised under the entire nail. I feared for an uncertain moment this hike may not happen...but miraculously again, an X-ray showed not broken! Still afraid to move forward and anxious as all heck to plan with an unknown healing time, but here I am! With whatever level of healing this is, and this is where I am at. Not exactly how I planned to start the trail dealing with a fragile toe-nail as it ”transitions“ off my foot, but at least it’s my own story, a unique version of how things are going.
For this realization I am grateful and so absolutely beyond lucky to be here; each and every step a real gift to remember and savor being able to look forward along this path, along this trail. Whatever state of being I may be in, it will be, not for better or for worse, not perfect or ”ideal” but most importantly will be who I am, now and fully!
I have also come to realize that this trail has started long before I will even step foot in the dirt. Even before I stepped foot off the midnight train in Bakersfield, partially (mostly) panicking about leaving some important piece of gear behind on the train seat, or in the harrowing Lyft ride that brought me to just barely skirt past the closing train doors.
No, this journey started before crashing at Finn‘s house with my last computer time wired on coffee and no sleep slamming away at the keyboard to get my blog posts up and running. After vacating my apartment the night before, still last minute packing and cutting the tags off of stuff and stuffing it into my already beyond stuffed pack while my gracious subletter patiently assisted and waited to move in almost 3 days after we originally talked about (Thank you Damien, I swear I’ll learn to pack earlier) (narrator voice: he won’t).
Further back still to finishing engineering calcs for a last Wall Flower sculpture which took an extra couple weeks longer than planned to “do it right” (which worked really well as a trip planning procrastination tool). Or even before to the Art Residency in Redding with Local Artists Berkeley that pulled me away for a wonderful creative inspiration rejuvenation but the toe injury more importantly checked my safety and taught me to slow it down.
Even earlier in the year, back in the winter and my return from my Idaho sawtooth backcountry hut trip - this trip actually began when I walked into the back yard with my backpacking gear in hand and my downstairs neighbor casually mentioned she would be moving out to hike the full trail this summer! And my mind thought to itself, “wait, maybe I can do that!” (...just kidding, if you’re still reading the journey will continue when I get more wifi and digress below in the footnotes at the end with more of an explanation of how I have the privilege to be able to do this!)
What is becoming clear to me now is that this trail is just one path on the overall bigger life journey (deep bro) and wether it’s going now or later or time or 3 days late (or 7 days late really), or side-tracked completely for an important Memorial Day poolside friend gathering, it will still be the right path for me to be on. Wearing whatever toe-nail polish I happen to have on at that moment. To walk in the direction I have set my sights and intentions, love and priorities, ultimately letting the wheel go and the ship steer where it will take me to wild unknown places beyond my wildest dreams.
“We start in the old familiar dark we’re swimming through...Pull me into the blue”
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