Bear's Den

Many of the hands that I shake on this journey are simply, and beautifully, lives touching, then they are gone forever. When we first hear a song we don't always know right away that it will become one of our favorite songs: a melody that will play in the gallery of our memories for the rest of our lives. This goes for people too. These songs are so powerful that wherever we are, and no matter what we are doing it becomes secondary. These songs may come over the radio, a friends compact disc, an old record we thought we threw...it doesn't matter. For us, all movement external stops. For a moment, everything 'in the now' has stopped. We are whisked back to that diner, that picture show, that velvet kiss with a lover that lost their name to time...but in that song they are still round in our listening. In that song we are round too with all the words we wish we'd said. People are alot like songs. Our time is so short, yet we are given all the notes in the world to be whatever songs we want to be for our five dancing minutes.
When I met Monte my hands were just beginning to warm to the day. My feet wanted caffine if they couldn't have new boots today. I agreed to the bribe. When Monte told me about his cabins up the hill past the pines, I visualized modern kit cabins that would block the wind. I remembered last night when my tent wanted to be a kite.
After seven I found my way to the cabins below Mount Jefferson. The twins were the nutty color of old furniture. They were old furniture, and as perfectly made. Monte wasn't home yet. I ran my hands over the log cabins from 1845 made of wormy chestnut, marveling at the tight dove joints that shrugged at time.
Monte'Bear'Pritchard and I were sitting in front of the fireplace in one of the cabins within the hour. Monte's nickname fit. Monte is a bear in form, and face with a easy smooth heart beating behind old farmer jeans, and pockets of assorted small tools. Pulling up a bench and a chair in front of the growing warmth in a still cold cabin we began to pour one another a cup of who we really were. We talked about walking, and having children. Choices. We talked about wood, and the old way people watched fire instead of television. Hours passed in the old log school house from the NC/VA state line that had been pain stakingly moved to its present location in 1960. We heard the heavy wind, barely.
Too soon Bear was off to the main house for bed. Rolling out my bag on the floor in front of the fire, I watched the glow of fire flickering on vintage wood as I fed the flame. I looked out the windows, thinking of the young lives that gazed through these very panes as students, lives now done living. I thought about these people I am now gifted to get to know, so garnished in music, and I thought more about children unborn.
Morning brought Bear's kind bass voice to the cabin door with coffee in two cups. I moved chairs back by the fire feeling like I was again a teacher preparing for class. Bear talked more. I fought back. We were both trying to cover alot of mountains in too short a period of time using words for feet. From his pocket Bear pulled out a silver natical wheel for me to carry on my journey; to carry me to the ocean. It is smooth by years of Bear's hand moving over the fine metal. It is obvious that Bear gave me a gift that he held very dear. I ran through my pack in my mind. I felt every pocket. Nothing could I think of to give in return came to mind. I said thank you in slow deep words. I had been given another song that has become part of the walk. Bear and I will sit by a fire again.