As we walked in the grassy meadow that lay atop Springer Mountain, a renewed energy gripped my sister. She clamored about the rocky outcrop which bore a bronze plaque with the raised image of a hiker, just a hiker who might be any of us. It was dedicated to Benton MacKaye, whose vision had helped spur the creation of the trail back in the 1920s.
And there, beside the plaque, a white paint swatch was brushed across the rock.
Placing our hands on that first white blaze, the official beginning of the Appalachian Trail, was something my sister had dreamt about and now implemented with all her planning, as well as the momentum she poured into my fearful soul throughout all our preparation. It was clear this was the moment her spirit first broke into freedom on the trail, when she reached down to touch that first white blaze.
For me, it had nearly the opposite effect. I felt a shadow of gloom stealing over all the things we had experienced so far, as if these smaller accomplishments were just practice, but not real. That first white blaze seemed to erase those moments that led me here, hinting that we hadn’t started yet. Summoning the energy to mentally begin again left me dazed.
Now, it was my sister who chattered while I sat stuffing myself with pepperoni and cheese, wrapped in a burrito shell.
She quizzed me slyly about Benton MacKaye, Myron Avory, and their strange falling out over whether the trail they envisioned ought to cross cities and towns as part of a meandering journey through Americana; or whether that plan was at odds with its very purpose of an escapism needed so badly by the blue-collar workers toiling in factories of a new nation which had wholeheartedly embraced the growth garnered via industrialization.
“mmmhmm,” I said.
She rummaged through the logbook and recorded her first entry on the official Appalachian Trail while I ate my grouchiness, wanting to feel whatever it was I was supposed to be feeling—what my sister was feeling. The summit.
After eating, I opened the logbook and wrote:
Hiking the trail with my sister in honor of our grandmothers.
—Alvirda Myrtle “Myrt”
A little above my entry, I spied Walkie Talkie’s which glowed with optimism and was accompanied by a hand-drawn stick figure of a hiker. I smiled and placed the logbook back into its waterproof hidey hole.
We had nearly three more miles to cover before our final campsite at Stover Creek Shelter. Thankfully, the trail led us off the peak into a grove with brush on both sides, the soothing shadow I needed to pull my scattered thoughts together.
Walkie was moving briskly and nimbly, but on her next step, the worn sole of a sneaker landed on a slick spot, and her feet splayed out from under her. She fell, bottom-first, flat on a large rock, the resulting thud amplified by the 18 pounds she carried on her back. Leaping up nearly instantly, she stood brushing her hands off on her shorts.
“Oh my gosh, are you okay?” I asked, and she nodded quickly.
“Let’s just stand here a minute and see how everything feels,” I said. My alarm began to take hold. We were nearly three miles from anywhere, and we’d never fallen while hiking before.
“How did it look?” Walkie’s eyes were wide as she sought answers from me. She probably couldn’t tell how she was feeling, whether there was any pain, or where it might suddenly present itself.
“It looked like you fell pretty hard. You went straight down.” I thought it lucky that no ankle-turning had happened, a clean fall with her feet slipping straight out and away from her body.
“I think I’m okay,” she said after we stood in the trail for a minute or so, me circling her carefully and kneeling to see if her legs bore any scrapes or emerging bruises.
“I’m so sorry you fell,” I told her, pausing before adding quietly, “I think I might be walking too closely behind you.” She was feeling a bucketful of things all at once, and we were quiet for a few minutes as we started out walking again.
“You do sometimes walk too closely. I’m not saying that’s why I fell, but I can feel you creeping up behind me. I don’t know if I need to move out of your way?” Walkie said.
She probably spent some of her hiking time wondering when I would step on the heel of her sneaker again.
As we proceeded down the trail, I began forcing myself to hang back to give her the space she needed, an inordinate challenge. Every fiber of my physical being wanted to inch closer and closer behind her.
“Why in the world do I do that?” I thought as I eased back again.
Now that I considered it, nearness while walking with people, in general, was an issue for me. The number of times I had zigzagged right into someone’s shoulder during a stroll was many. The number of times I’d head-butted our father while giving him a peck on the cheek—it was a lot. I was a lot. For other people to take.
I wondered if my sister was serving as a kind of security blanket for me. I knew how to walk on a trail. Was I afraid of the woods? I felt completely happy and peaceful, except for seemingly needing to crawl up my sister’s arse.
Perhaps I’d spent a lifetime accidently throwing other people off their course without realizing it, pushing them aside as I climbed into their space.
It was sobering to realize I might carry another seemingly innocuous trait that needed reining in. At 43, I was well past imagining I would ever make it through a day without one of my human flaws poking through, but I fancied I’d at least identified most of them.
I sighed as I accepted there were still more unknown gems, cedar chests of well-preserved failings, just waiting to be discovered. I wanted to reconcile myself to growing even more, but what a chore when I thought I’d done enough of that already.
Maybe I didn’t really believe I could do these things on my own? Maybe I’d been leaching off my sister’s profound self-confidence. If so, it wasn’t fair to her. She wasn’t some impervious rock for me to use in steadying my fears. I had to find my own walk in these woods.
Rocks & Roots 