Woodberry Inn, Floyd VA.....Still

Walking the Blue Ridge Parkway away from Floyd, I am removed from the world. It is a day of roller coaster hills. Three cars pass, one truck. My pack is swollen with food to see me through miles of no gas stations with sour coffee. No stores pull at my wallet to buy stale donuts, and the fig newtons I prize. If there are seven names for different kinds of snow, there are ten words for different kinds of being alone. At any time of day I hold at least two of these words in my hand, in my throat. I try to remember what a kiss feels like as if it is a food I used to eat. I am not too far from trying my arm, but I remember that hugging myself never made me less alone. I talk to an old man at Rock Castle Gorge overlook, as if he is the mailman and no letters have come since fall. He is in a truck with the window down. He doesn't know my story, or care to. He does not want to have his ears warmed with my words. He does not want to tell me about his wife at home, or the eagle that chirped as I arrived. He eats a Oreo quickly like only grown ups do. He turns the keys to his truck, turning the wheel until the belts squeal. Turning back from setting my pack down has me watching wheels pull away. I watch till I remember that I don't know him. I look for the eagle that is too far away to talk to.
Here the farm houses have returned to the land, creeks and bears wander out of the trees but never look up at me. Deer run in front of me because deer run, not because they are heavy with caring. My pack is an old rocker buckled to my back. With each step taken I am rocking over old boards on a porch that won't let me rest. At a campground where nobody comes except a rare hopeful bear looking for an easy fix, I make a sandwich on bread that has become unrelated to the warm loaf I pushed into my pack half a day ago. Now on cold dry bread that breaks and crumbles in the cold mountain air, I keep gathering the bits of meat, pepper cheese, and alvocado back to center while trying to hear the families that once sat here warm as soup. There is no hiss of lanterns now. Nobody's dog brushs at my leg for a hand out. My ears rub the air as if it is the bark of an old tree oiled by many hands. I hear nothing but my own memories sitting down beside me.

Early evening finds me at the Woodbury Inn. Nancy is expecting somebody else so she calls for me to enter as I drum her door gently, wondering if I took too long getting here. In minutes Nancy and I are already on the porch of knowing each other. Nancy is excited by the walk. This always recharges me. New friend Eric, from Cafe' del Sol, called days ago telling Nancy about my journey. Eric inquired if Nancy and her husband would consider setting me up for a night. A few days later finds me in a hot tub with more great faces sharing their lives and dreams with me as we nurse a couple of Seirra Nevada beers. We flinch ever so slightly as the cold rain falls down fom a dark sky.
My room is on a pond that bubbles with blue gills nudging underwater reeds while they wait to talk to the evening deer. It messes with the mind to go from having so little to having everything. Even though I don't think I miss television, I find I turn it on as I unpack my gear. While washing my pants in the sink, ice skaters race for gold metals, round and round as the water goes down the drain. Sitting on the large comfortable bed I feel the worn smooth sole of my boots wondering how many miles I can squeak out of the thin rubber that separates me from the road. I am happy with my Vasque boots, even though they begin to talk of the big sleep. With somewhere between two and three thousand miles under me, I have only worn out two pairs of boots--that includes New England.
Night passes too fast in a good bed. I sleep lightly because it awakens me to not be on the forest floor. It is alarming to not hear the coming and going of assorted little lives. In the woods when it is quiet something is not right.
Nancy makes waffles that fill my plate three times. My thoughts are all about the hot logan berry homemade jam, combined with whipped butter overflowing crater after crater. I now eat for the walk. It is embarssing the ammount that I can eat. Nancy smiles warmly as I say I am an eating machine in a voice that correctly implies that I am sorry. Nancy anchors another set of magic waffles on my jelly streaked plate while she talks about my favorite subject. Food.
It is more than beautiful here. Looking around at this life Nancy and her husband Greg have carved out in these mountains makes me look at my pack and journal like a homeless man pushing leaves in his shirt to get warm, while he stares at a great oak. My days have become a montra about this dream being lived so that new dreams can have wings pinned on. There is no room in my pack for all my wants, fears, hopes. I can only carry now. It is all I can handle living on the bridge that I'm crossing witout worring about how I'd never be able to paddle the rapids below. I can not waste energy on things that may never be. New hands are winding their fingers in mine to strenthen me without my asking. Often I have only to open my hands so that a stranger's hand can slide in.