As some of you know, I’m hiking the Pacific Crest Trail (hereafter referred to as the PCT, because you gotta keep up with the cool kid lingo and also I’m too lazy to type the whole thing, but not too lazy to give wordy explanations apparently). I leave end of April to fly into San Diego, where some beautiful “Trail Angels” will pick up me and Sherry, my hiking partner, and drive us to their house where we will crash for the night. Early the next morning they will drive us to the southern terminus of the PCT. We will stand at the monument in Campo, California marking the beginning of a 2,650 mile journey to the northern terminus in Manning Park, Canada. We will look over that desert—hopefully in bloom because it’s been a heavy precipitation year and I want to see desert flowers dang it—nervous but excited.

And then, we walk.

But why is this appealing, right?

I’m not 100% sure why it WOULDN’T be appealing… however I’m extremely easily entertained by trees and don’t always like showering. It is however important to know why you are doing something (as explained in Pacific Crest Trials, I love a good play on words… but also it’s a good read) and also I do best with outward accountability because I’m an “obliger” so I’m putting this out here.

Here are my “WHY’S”:

1. I really like walking. I mean, one would hope. I’ve noticed that anytime I have felt stressed or down, or just stuck creatively or even simply feeling cooped up in my house, I go for a walk. I’ve always done this, and I’m usually the first person to say “well, we could just walk there!” A couple years ago I was living in Washington, D.C., going to grad school. It was a pretty tough time for me, I discovered that what I was studying wasn’t what I wanted to do as a career. I discovered that I didn’t enjoy living in the city…blah blah blah, anyway, I would walk for hours around the city. I’d walk to school with my “heavy backpack,” I would go find trails any chance I could get around the area (Virginia really is beautiful). Just a lot of walking. And I walk where I live now, but I always wished for a longer trail, I kinda hate walking the same paths over and over again. Welp, I think I found a trail long enough!

2. I love nature a lot. Again, you’d hope so, right? I love the mountains. There are a lot of nature loving people like me who have written a lot of books about nature (enter John Muir, Thoreau, the list goes on) and artists who are inspired by nature (Georgia O’Keefe, Monet, the list is infinite). All I can say from my own experience is that it makes me feel alive and like I can breathe. I am humbled and intrigued. I feel tiny and yet fearless when I’m gazing at the mountains. Part of something greater than myself, which puts into perspective all the trivialities that I stress over daily. I feel close to God, because I believe that He created all of this beauty and created in me the ability to appreciate it. As an artist, I find nature incredibly inspiring. I plan to take roughly a trillion photos and do some sketches and watercolors and create some new nifty PCT inspired art.

3. Back to the Trail Angels for my next point. So, Trail Angels are former thru-hikers (backpackers who hike the entire trail thru, from end to end, not to be confused with section-hikers—backpackers who hike a portion of the trail, or day-hikers—people who hike, well for the…day) or simply anyone who loves PCT hikers. I am so intrigued by this community of people who help hikers out of the goodness of their heart, who want to help people on this incredible, life-changing journey. I’m excited to meet them, as well as my fellow thru-hikers. I’m excited to be a part of this community. I’m always drawn to things where people become a community that feels like a family, I think this is one reason I loved doing theatre, why I enjoyed my summer job working at a ranch where we were with the same group every day, my friends, and you know, my ACTUAL family. But this trail draws so many people from completely different backgrounds, the commonality being that we all want to walk from Mexico to Canada with everything we need to survive on our backs. I can’t wait to meet them.

4. I’m a little terrified to do it. Which is a weird reason, but something that tends to push me to do things. I was terribly shy when I was younger, and still have my moments, which I mostly blame on being an introvert, and this made me try doing theatre, move to a big city… to prove to myself that I could do it. I could bore you with other examples, but suffice to say… This trail is daunting. I’ve never even really backpacked before, except one night in preparation for the PCT. But I want to prove to myself THAT I CAN FREAKING DO IT. I’m pretty stubborn sometimes. I think I can. I also have wonderful family and friends that function as my support team.

5. I’m giving myself permission to get away from it all for a while. “It” being the constant influx of information that is TV, the internet but specifically Facebook/social media, using Netflix as a source of escapism, trying to constantly figure out what job to pursue or if I should go back to school or if I should be more “grown up.” And stuff like… am I scheduling my day correctly? Should I be meditating AND exercising AND writing in my Bullet Journal AND journaling AND do morning pages or sketch… every morning? I want to deal with the constant, toxic, thoughts of being inadequate in almost every area of my life. Of beating myself up constantly. I know most of these issues won’t go away, they’ll be there for me when I get back. But I’ll have time to face them and work through some of them. I’ll have time to think. My schedule will be simple: get up, eat, pack up, walk, eat, walk, camp, eat, sleep, repeat. People speak of how mentally taxing the trail can be because of the monotony, and also hard things will come up along the way. I’m not naïve about this. Physically it will demanding. The altitude will be rough for a while, my legs and shoulders will get tired, I may suffer injuries, because, I’m clumsy and things happen. Mentally it will be demanding. After a while the monotony will get old. But just knowing that all I’m supposed to do in that moment is put one foot in front of the other and not worry about what events may arise in the future but accept that they will arise and that I will deal with them when they come will be an opportunity to grow and become a more grounded and mindful person. Maybe. I guess we will find out.

It’s a lot to ask of a trail, sometimes I feel like I romanticize it. It’s just dirt and rocks and stuff.

The only certainty I know is that I’m supposed to be doing it. It’s been on my heart for the past few years. I keep trying to postpone it or talk myself out of it, but I keep being pulled back to it. I can only think that there’s something greater than myself leading me to this adventure. Too many things have fallen perfectly into place for me to be able to do it, and I’m encouraged daily. So as I struggle through the last minute organization process of figuring out my resupply food and making sure I have all of the right gear, I realize that I’m already on the trail, metaphorically speaking. And I intend to find joy in every last step.

(Meanwhile has breakdown because she didn’t order enough mashed potatoes)

(Just kidding)

(But only slightly)