Outside Reading: Trail Journals

               Some of the time while I am reading up on different trail journals, as a personal interest, I notice the emotional empathy even I catch as I read. I have never hiked a large distance of trail such as these people are doing and yet I am drawn to the emotion that just these words on a screen present to me. Some people seem to leave their hearts out on these trails and it really inspires me. It, also, brings up the puzzling question of why? I mean, riddle me this, why would you give your heart to someone that rains on it, freezes and possibly even snows on it, almost never lets you shower, rarely quenches your thirst, beats down on you day in and day out, even breaks your bones, makes you want to quit and stop (yet you go on and continue to battle through) and at the very end when you are proud and triumphant of all you have accomplished you stop, kneel down, and thank it for everything then let it receive your heart the entire journey along? That just sounds crazy, almost like an abusive, parasitic relationship that you get nothing out of in return. However, so many people find such joy out of these hardships. Some people, though, are like Chipmunk, who in all actuality hate the trees and outside and have a separate motive to keep them going. That is not the case for almost all of the thru-hikers, though. A large majority of thru-hikers on these types of trails are looking to find friendships (which, I mean personally, I found just fine walking through the halls of schools and jobs and malls, even!) and there's even more that are looking for a sense of belonging and being (which I find just fine and just as easily in music). I have been keeping track of an Appalachian Trail hiker named Rip Tide. He has become sort of a friend to me, through reading his journals. He updates frequently and I have grown fond of his vernacular and trail terms. Even when he talks about things that when poorly that day, those sections always pale in comparison to the longer discussions about how positively beautiful the area was or how nice of a day it was outside, meanwhile he almost ran out of food and sprained his ankle twice already. His positive attitude is so contagious, even through the computer, I feel empowered to move on through my day without complaining about walking from Santoro to the Ferguson Center every morning or having to wake up for an eight o'clock class in the mornings, because if I did complain, I would just think about how Rip Tide is hiking an extra 15 miles today on top of the 30 that he already hiked because he needed to reach the nearest shelter in order to get enough water for the next day's hike. I understand that these thru-hikers made this decision to put their bodies and minds through this journey themselves, however I feel that makes it just as inspiring that they would choose to do that, then why can't I? I think I can, and hopefully I will. Maybe I will bring my cello ;)