We have been convinced to take at least part of the day off. We camped last night along a secluded, grassy bank back behind the Kracker Barrel gas station here at White Pass. We had originally planned on moving on after stopping in and picking up our package, but after we got our new food supply all sorted out, redistributed, packed up, etc. we decided that we owed it to ourselves to take a load off and even allow ourselves a cup of coffee before hiking again in the morning.
At 5:30am the sprinkling rain woke me, cool droplets on my forehead pulling me from a sound slumber. It wasn't much, and still hasn't started really coming down, but we've decided to sit out the day's potential foulness here at the corner cafe in the convenience store, maybe hitch a ride down Route 12 to Packwood, where who knows what kind of interesting, unexpected day might unfold. But then, would it be unexpected at all if something strange and unusual happened to us? Have we grown accustomed to this bizarre life of treading lightly on our own sets of feet, of wearing our vulnerability and our unassuming benevolence like a transparent raincoat?
We had just finished our coffees and were literally in the process of hoisting our packs up onto our backs when two guys came in and said that, if they were us, they would definitely wait until tomorrow to ascend up into Goat Rocks. The high point, which we've heard can get pretty hairy when the wind and fog start up, is said by many to command the premier perspective, the grandest and greatest views of not only the Pacific Northwest section, but of the entire PCT.
"But who is to say that tomorrow will be any different, any clearer?" nags my need for speed. Eliza and I both, I am afraid, have caught the mile madness, the continuation at all cost craze, the big-mile brain bug. It is hard to stop going. We feel like we're wasting valuable time, like we'll never finish if we don't get this next 25 in before sundown tonight. It's ridiculous we both know. Sitting down again, we look out the windows at the ominous blanket of grey pulling itself tighter down over the mountaintops.
Everyone insists that starting tomorrow there should be four days straight of a nice high pressure front pushing through, bringing highs in the valleys of 90 degrees, 70s in the mountains. Well, we sigh, it looks like we have no choice. Smiling, we settle in for the do-nothing day . . .
It is interesting to think of momentum as we experience it. It's hard to stop moving, even though we're not really moving all that fast -- we max out at around 2.5 mph -- even though there is ultimately and absolutely nothing to stop us from staying put wherever we feel the need for a little taste of civilized, creature comfort, or just plain old rest and relaxation. Maybe it helps us to legitimize this long journey of ours. Perhaps we are afraid that someday soon we'll be 30 and still have none but the most obscure sense of what it means to commit ourselves to something other than the preservation of our own sense of unbounded freedom. But why then do people work so hard and for so long to secure themselves in the world of work and career and family and commitment. Money, success, security, comfort, high level, active, responsible participation at the head of a great and powerful society -- all of these things are important to me as well.
Choose a path, make adjustments where needed, veer right, veer left . . .
It is a fine line to tread, it seems -- a distorted, distant, deceptive line which may or may not lead where we'd like it to lead. I am thankful for so much in my life, not the least of which has been its variety, diversity, uncertainty, and change. Who can imagine or pronounce or describe the extent and subtlety of change that occurs so naturally to everything in this world?
I sat down here to write, originally, in order to record the names of some of the wildflowers that we've been enjoying so much these past three weeks in WA, but I find myself now looking around at everything in wonder, the same wonder here in this gas station as the wonder felt in a glade of dew-soaked blood red Columbine and velvet indigo subalpine Lupine.
I spoke with my mother this morning. She was relaxing, happy to have a day off after helping all week with my brother and Varuni and their 1.5-year-old twin boys, Arun and Kapil. I miss driving down to Manhattan and seeing them all every month, the wild boys growing so much week by week, changing so rapidly, speaking now, walking and interacting with one another. I find that I feel a kinship with the children just as I feel close and connected with the adults in my life -- of any age or rank. I guess it is my age, and what I am doing now. There is a sense in me that all people are accessible, reachable, understandable, from the youngest most instinctual, wide-eyed child to the oldest and wizened of great-grandparents.
Thoughts come and go. The radio has started to blare a little.
There are beautiful field guides here to look at, filled with vivid pictures of the wildflowers we've been seeing so much of and the trees we've been passing through and sleeping among.
***
Bunchberry ~ Cornus canadensis
Western Trillium ~ Trillium ovatum
Vanilla leaf ~ Achlys triphylla
Bear grass ~ Xerophyllum tenax
Tigerlily ~ Lilium Columbianum
Subalpine daisy ~ Erigeron peregrinus
Red Columbine ~ Aguilegia formosa
Small flowered paintbrush ~ Castilleja parviflora
Lupine ~ Lupinus
and many more . . .
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