memory log: Sunday, September 6, 2009

One of the more emotional days. It was the end of the trip. The end of the journey. And everything looked different.

There was a distance now from the kid and teenager i was and the experience of walking the streets and being near and in that house in Lansdale. It's like my journey ended as i stood on the edge of my parent's property to look at the house i partially grew up in. Whatever loaded memories and negative experiences i had resided there and i was letting them stay. It felt like they didn't belong to me anymore. There's such a distance from the violence, depression, abuse, lack of hope, lack of support, lack of care. It almost felt silly to revisit it.

From standing on the edge of their property i realized that i didn't need to run it around in my head anymore. There was no need to try to make sense of how or why certain people act the way they do. I couldn't make my parents be different. I couldn't undo what they've done or what it's done to me. I realized i didn't have to be that. Of course, people meet you and they see you the way you are but you don't always see it. Then those people get confused when you act in all these contradictory ways but the whole time you're battling the self you think you are or are supposed to be and the self you are. But it's the same thing. I realized i didn't have to do anything i was supposed to do. I just had to be there and stop feeling guilty for everything or feeling that being myself was a fault that needed to be corrected.

When we took our final walk to the Lansdale train station, i filmed the entire way but it felt routine and unnecessary. The film is there, though, and the photos. Maybe after i've settled and had some time to look everything over, i'll see why i needed to film it. The memorable parts of the trip were everything leading up to that. I don't know. The journey is more interesting than the goal.

memory log: Saturday, September 5, 2009

I was right. When i told the driver that i wasn't sure if that bridge would take us across the Schuylkill he said i was right and the bridge wasn't even there anymore. They had recently taken it out. Good to know my paranoia wasn't for nothing.

It was a Saturday with a ton of people on the trail—mostly bikers. So much of the walk was out in the bare open sun that for the first time in PA, i was feeling oppressed by it. Most of the trail was right alongside the Schuylkill and it made me feel like i was flowing forward with the water. Other than being nervous about the start of the walk, I hadn't felt nervous about where we were going and how close i'd be to my parents and former home. I was excited to move again. A day of rest was good for my body but terrible for my mind. Moving myself keeps the pace with the rate that my mind speeds ahead.

But parts were off. Distances i thought would be short felt long and the ones i thought were long felt short. Suddenly we were in Norristown, then we were out of Norristown. Then in a place where streets were familiar but scenery wasn't. When i lived in Lansdale, i never had my driver's license, so my experience was very provincial. I went as far as i could walk or bus and since walking, bussing and driving are 3 entirely different experiences, i had a different impression. My sense of direction and where certain streets went was off. Nothing related. Now i knew exactly where i was and where the street would take me. Getting in a vehicle just creates blank space in between places.

I know i was walking in areas i'd been in before but everything felt new. The scenery was just itself without meaning the past. I was just myself moving through it and finding a narrow space to walk. My breath and legs and heart had a rhythm and i would just keep moving until i was at the spot i thought i should stop.

We stopped at a hotel less than one mile from my parents house. And all i could think of that night was getting up early to walk to it, just to see it.

memory log: Friday, September 4, 2009

Waking up for a day of nothing at the Holiday Inn Express in King of Prussia, PA.

Growing up, most people only knew of King of Prussia as the place where a mall was. And i think it's still the same way. I had to laugh the night before when i realized the hotel was situated directly across the street from the King of Prussia Mall. Since shopping and consuming (anything other than a large meal after walking) was the last thing on my mind, it was surreal to be forced in to the mall to find something to eat. It felt like a virtual reality ride or a 3-d reality tv show—just a few steps away from being a real experience. Or, i was becoming so accustomed to carefully observing my surroundings at a walking pace that i was actually seeing the experience of walking in a mall for the first time.

I had no desire to go back so spent most of my day in the hotel room, trying to relax and rest. There was a fine view of the turnpike from our balcony. The view indoors on the television wasn't much better but at least i could catch up with tennis on TV. It ended up being my saving grace as i lay sleepless that night. Apparently, if i'm not moving around a lot during the day, it's nearly impossible for me to sleep. I started to realize why i was so restless after working an entire day in an office. My mind was also consumed with the idea of how and where we would start the next day for the final long walk in to Lansdale. When i had reached the end of the trail in Valley Forge, there was a sign that said "bridge access to Schuylkill River Trail". The issue was getting across the river. I couldn't figure out how it was possible without walking on the turnpike or US highway—both very dangerous and illegal. The sign seemed to solve the problem but after the experience of accidentally illegally trespassing on an abandoned mental facility plus many other contradictory signs and scenarios (a crosswalk crossing a US highway next to a no-pedestrian sign, trails that started without pedestrian access and the hotel that was literally unreachable on foot) I was a little paranoid. We already would be getting a ride back to the Valley Forge trail but what if the bridge didn't exist and we were stuck again? The anxiety I had before the night of our extra-long walk was back and I was learning to trust these feelings.

I eventually managed to drop off to the repetitive rhythm of a Rafael Nadal match on ESPN. Sometimes TV can be a good thing.

memory log: Thursday, September 3, 2009

The riskiest day of walking by far. Some road shoulders narrowed to inches against a guard rail next to a steep slope with cars curving at 45mph towards me. It was the first time i had to regularly stop walking and make myself narrow along the edge until the traffic passed. Some areas had an impossibility of pedestrians. The insanity of it was that at the entrance to the Perkiomen trail was a US or state highway on ramp without any lights for pedestrians. I had to look, run and hope my way across the street, always envisioning the slam from a high speed vehicle and imagining myself silhouetted against the clear morning sky. Trail to road to front yards to road to a trail through Valley Forge National Historic Park. I kept asking Christy if she could feel the history. The course wound through trees and meadows. Meadows where people died? It's how i imagined it. I tried to look at the scene like a panoramic movie screen where depictions of soldiers stumbled along, riddled with disease. Milkweed sprouted in entire fields. Tourists took photographs next to statues with their children.

When we got out of Valley Forge and summarized the visit in the aptly name "Encampment Center" (aka gift shop), it was going to be just a short walk to the hotel in King of Prussia (non-Philadelphians pause to laugh here at the name of the town). What was a pleasant paved trail turned into climbing over guardrail underneath and overpass littered with cockleburs. They were all over me like parasites and momentarily freaked me out. The shoulder disappeared and we walked on vast lawns that surrounded a convention center and office park. When thinking of going on a hike, i think this is the last idea that would come to mind. But there it is, present in our landscape—just as much a part of it as the nicely labeled trails that walkers get corralled on to. We had one last barrier: the underpass to the PA turnpike. It could have been easy but the non-existent should didn't only disappear to nothing, it did it on a curve in the road so that no car would see us if we walked there. We would surely be dead. And there's no crossing the turnpike either. The only alternative would be to go back the way we came and walk around a circle that would take 5 miles or more and then we STILL couldn't be sure if we'd be able to reach the hotel on foot. We were literally trapped.

My fear of making phone calls dwindles in a situation like this and within minutes i managed to find a car service that serviced our hotel that would come and pick us up to take us to the other side of the bridge. And he wouldn't even let us pay him. I told him what we were doing and he told us how he lost 50 or more pounds and no longer has diabetic symptoms because he started walking the 5 mile loop through Valley Forge. Another savior, another nice guy.

We met Tina at the hotel and proceeded to have to go to the mall for dinner. But that's another surreal experience for the next day.

memory log: Wednesday, September 2, 2009

When we left the French Creek Inn, we walked a little bit to a nearby diner (love PA diners) where a few guys sitting outside actually recognized us from the previous day in Oaks. I imagined us developing a sort of local celebrity where people would start tracking the 3 women—one in a bright yellow shirt—who were walking the highways, trails and roads of PA. A local TV station would get on the scent of it and before we knew it, we'd be met by a local crew as we stopped for a bathroom and some OJ at a WaWa or Turkey Hill Minit Mart.

Once we got inside we got a few "you go girls" from the female waitresses. As much as i hate that phrase, it was nice to hear. One thing i didn't expect was how this walk might seem to some women as one of empowerment. The day we had to walk on the US highway, we got a few cars honking at us but most of them were women.

This day of walking was really short—under 7 miles—but it was a lesson in the idiocy of suburban developments. After we got through Phoenixville, which seems to have suffered/benefited from the same gentrification and yuppie-ization of their downtown (artisan soaps, gourmet soups and a ton of irish bars and celtic paraphernalia shops), we entered into heavy suburbia. Sidewalks lasted as far as the new housing development's width, which was usually around 500 yards. Whoever built these places didn't seem to want anyone to venture outside of them. I kept picturing a robot-person walking to the end of these sidewalks and going back and forth walking in place like a kid's toy that's bumped in to a wall. The "houses" were gigantic and the landscape was barren. In between developments was a heavy swath of trees and vegetation that most likely was torn down on its flanking sides to accommodate for the new gargantuan homes. Everything seemed ludicrous and garish: the superfluous amount of windows; the new trees planted to replace the hundreds-year-old trees that were once there; the isolation of the named "neighborhoods"; the lack of encouragement to go anywhere from there but by car. And i thought Phoenix was a car city.

After we managed to not get killed on the side of the road and got to our hotel, there was a lot of icing, hot baths & showers, blister lancing and bandaging. We were starting to look kind of rough. I decided to have an intervention with Tina, who's feet were nearly covered in blisters on every area that came in contact with the ground. She was having to take baby steps and move slowly to not be in terrible pain walking on such raw skin. I suggested she take a cab to the next destination where we would have an additional day of rest to let her feet heal, but i left it up to her. Mostly, i was worried about her feet getting infected and her not being able to do the walk in to Lansdale—which i know she really wanted to do. She decided to take my suggestion, to my HUGE relief. I hadn't actually seen how bad her feet were until the day before last and when i did, couldn't imagine how she managed to keep walking on them. I've seen blisters from running distance, but never that bad.

That night, being in the nicest hotel we'd be in on the whole trip, i slept like the dead.

memory log: Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Some days center themselves around one event. All of the things that happened before them are forgotten and the events after them are remembered only in comparison to that main event.

When we left Pottstown, i had to navigate us on streets until the Schuylkill River trail began again near Valley Forge. I don't necessarily remember it being so bad, only that, as verdant and pretty as it still was, I was getting tired of worrying about oncoming traffic and the noise of all the cars. Schuylkill Road was also a state highway, occasionally spattered with no pedestrian signs. I wasn't really worried about a cop giving us a ticket since i assumed those signs were for walkers walking with traffic and possibly hitchhiking. Still, i thought it would be nice to get on to a quieter road where we could actually hear each other if we wanted to talk. The 3 of us had started to get in the habit of quietly trudging along.

We passed Limerick Nuclear Power Plant, more grasshoppers and countless meadows and reached a point where the road divided to the "old" Schuylkill Road. Immediately we passed a tavern built in the late 1700s and other stone houses quietly sitting vacant on the edge of a narrow road. A few elderly ladies sat in rocking chairs on a big wooden porch and sceptically stared at us.

I had trusted Google Maps to navigate me through these smaller roads and i thought i had found a good shortcut to get through to Spring City when i started to see more no trespassing signs. I even bypassed a "no through street" sign, assuming that maybe they just didn't want cars going through here. What could be the harm in a few people? There were no people and no traces. It felt like walking in to a Stephen King book. But i trusted in the map in my hands until we passed what seemed to be a fake department of transportation building and into a giant field of an abandoned town. The deeper we walked in, the narrower the streets became as the trees and plants consumed the shoulder. I knew if i kept walking through, i'd eventually get to Spring City but imagined the beginning of a nightmare where we'd walk and walk and soon the vines, branches and weeds would be wrapped around us and we'd be lost in the woods forever. There was an eerie absence. Not just that people weren't there but that they were removed purposefully. I felt like i was in a lion's den and too deep to get out safely.

I won't go into more details since i already covered them in my post from Sept 1. Stumbling on to Pennhurst State School grounds was one of the only experiences in this walk that consumed the entire day to be of its meaning. Even though i ended up walking only 1 or 2 miles shy of the miles i walked on the hellish day 2 days before, it seemed insignificant since my mind was occupied with a creepy, special feeling. I'm still having trouble thinking of anything else of significance to mention. When something grips your mind that much at the moment, it must dim other input to put it in the forefront.

memory log: Monday, August 31, 2009

Everything was new on Monday.

After the full range of emotions i experienced on our long walk from Shillington, i felt like i had nothing left but to feel good. It seemed impossible that we were privileged enough to walk along the side of small, windy, beautiful roads on a sunny day in the summer in Pennsylvania. I rejoined the Schuylkill River Trail after a mile or 2 on other roads and was plunged into trees, plants, moss, mosquitos, birds, cicadas and all the green-ness pulsating around us. I was inside one of those children's illustrated encyclopedias that shows what the earth was like before humans evolved.

I imagine we were all sore but thinking of it now, i can't even remember the pain. The walk from Birdsboro/Douglasville to Pottstown was around 9 miles and seemed to be over so quickly i started to feel like i hadn't done enough for the day. But Pottstown was perfect...like a larger version of Lansdale with rowhomes, diners, corner stores and railroad tracks. Several times that night, a freight train rumbled through and i wondered how you'd get used to that living in the rowhomes across the street from our hotel but directly in front of the tracks.

I think it was at this point where i started to settle in to this walk like it was my new routine. Instead of waking up, making coffee and heading to work or turning on the computer, i was carbo-loading and putting on all of my gear. By about 4pm, we were finished walking and could go get an early dinner where i ate way more than i normally ever would to replace the extra 1,000 calories i was burning each day. As simplistic as it may sound, I started to realize that every day would be different. It was refreshing to veer away and then occasionally meet up with the river and watch it flow in the direction i was walking. It was refreshing to know that each time i saw it, it would be different and i would be seeing it differently. All the new connections in my brain were making the space around me alter minute by minute.

I wasn't having any trouble sleeping anymore.