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.
No comments:
Post a Comment