Monday, November 10, 2014

Returning Soon

Hello Everyone,

I wanted to tell you I will be posting an epilogue soon. It's been nice to step away from the blog and enjoy my time with friends but I feel I haven't done much justice in the way of an ending. But in the meantime, I just wanted to alert you to the fact that I have not, in fact, dropped off the face of the earth. See you soon.

Saturday, November 1, 2014

To A Stranger (2010)

To A Stranger

On days like this
when I feel dead
and nothing is important
and I’m looking out of my bedroom window
to find that nothing in particular reminds me of anything,
I keep my head down
and think of New York.

The graffiti lines of your silhouette are written over this city
that I have never been to.

If I were to meet you for the first time,
I would arrive at your doorstep
in late November. You invite me in even though
I didn’t call ahead. My black peacoat,
which I think is quite New York,
finds a place on your couch, my shoes by your
door.

And finally,
I get to ask you about an old World War I tune
that goes something like

"There’s a long, 
long trail
a-winding into
the land
of my dreams."

Or talk to you about how
you make me want,
want to travel on top of a train
through the empty spaces of America,
want to scrape life off New York’s streets.
And you want me to write something like On The Road
as we eat peaches in the dark, the ones
I brought from California.
So I tell ribald stories of the moon
because you are a creature of that world.
I have your full attention,
holding your dark blue focus
in between the tips of my fingers.

There are things that belong to you
because I ornamented you with them,
things that I wish reminded me of myself.
But you are tired of wearing them
now that I have met you, stranger,
and the space between us coalesces with them
to make the room warm and heavy.
So we take it out into the streets.
You take the window and I take the stairs,
only to break out into the brisk
wintry street traffic
and see you trapeze around the skyscrapers
like a fairy on Scotch.

Sam Tidwell, 2010

Day 364 - October 30th

Day 363 - October 29th

My water boiled and I whipped of the top of my pot, watched the steam rise. I finish this walk in three days. There are more leaves on the groun than remain on the trees. Stick season approaches and the nights are cold. I get up and walk just the same. Patriot's Path is a network of trails that used to be railroad tracks. Their paths wind between houses and centers of towns so I am walking in beautiful pockets of hidden wilderness. As enchanting as these forests are though, I found myself yearning for the straightforwardness of the roads now [that] I'm so close to the end.

I reached Morristown in the afternoon and went straight for the post office to pick up the package Map Wizard sent me. Inside the box were two new GoPro batteries and a battery charger, much more than I had expected. I immediately went for a cafe to charge them and they worked! I'll be able to record the end now. Thanks, Map Wizard. 

By the time I left the cafe it was getting dark and there was a possibility of rain but these factors don't concern me much these days. After all my training as a camping ninja, urban environments offer many campsites now [that] I know where to look. You just get this feeling when you walk by a potential camping area. It's quieter and there's more space, darkness. And there are trees, the trees signal safety to me even as I stand on the precipice of an urban metropolis that appears hard and unwelcoming from afar. Tonight I walked into the glaring headlights of New Jersey traffic and felt complete joy at having uncovered a side of life I'd never known and made it comfortable, functional, fulfilling even. Small moments of excitement thrill through me as I notice the planes overhead angling lower towards the cities that are closer. I can see light pollution and I know I won't see the stars for a while which will be strange. I even saw a sign that read "New York." These have been the few times I have really noticed splashes of emotion. Somehow I am still surprised by this. I would have thought I would be weeping every day for the past 10 like Andrew, the guy who walked before me. Instead I am swaying like kelp but still anchored--Okay, [maybe] I'm not kelp but I feel there's an ocean all around me and there is no shore, I will never arrive, I could not possible be anywhere else because this is all, I will never arrive, there is no other side. But, of course, there [must be]. My friends and parents will be waiting when I wash up, confused and hurt and sad and the love and joy of seeing them will make me remember, will help me get on with life. 

I am afraid of what will happen to the hope that has grown in me about us, our world, myself. Can I defend it from suffering and cynicism? Will it mature or decay? These are questions that will have to wait. I believe it will hold. I trust, and accept the vulnerability of my stance. 
 
Fireworks!

Day 362 - October 28th



Day 361 - October 27th