Chapter 24. The Mind's Journey

More than a decade of journeying afoot, beginning with a flight from pain, ending in almost unendurable loss, and yet you say you walked in beauty? I walked in beauty even while losing. The losing was not a fault of the walking, but the beauty may well be to its credit. How does such a life apart, spent contrary to the main stream of automobiles and centrally heated homes, affect the sojourner? Where does the mind go while the feet walk so many miles?

There may have been a time when the walking away was done primarily, at least on a subconscious level, in order to be recalled, to be asked back into the warm, loving world of human connectedness. At first lifts were accepted, and it was indeed reassuring when a stranger stopped his dash to wherever it was he hurried, and offered help without my having begged for it by an outstretched thumb.

I wrote once, after an International House record concert in which two hands had to applaud for many, of the faith required to keep walking during the hours or days that might elapse between rides:

"The new concert-mistress nearly cried to see me, ‘I thought no one would come.’ I told her someone always does, that walking the roads a long way I'd get so tired and alone I knew no one would ever stop to offer me a lift, but one did finally, always."

Thus the social fabric like a skin resists rupture, and if a part is injured there are specialized units—those who are their brother's keepers—to step in or stop by to invite the derelict back onto the world.

It was a thin pilgrim who shouldered his gray rucksack in the community of Alpha, Ohio, and set out full-time walking. Like an unintentional non-profit corporation I hadn't meant to yield 40 pounds from 185; I hadn't heard then the runner's propaganda that the skinny shall inherit the earth. I just didn't feel like eating. Along with cutting down to three cigarettes a day I seemed determined to subsist daily on three calories.

But the kindness of the citizens and health of the road changed all that. As the heart healed and the feet hardened, I threw away the cigarettes entirely and began to eat my way back to health. Peanut butter is a better high anyway. God bless its inventor, George Washington Carver!

In the North Carolina wilderness I realized that I was well but had no intention of going back. I liked it in the jungle with savage birds and marmosets who ate until they were full or the food ran out. I believe now that the walks were never primarily therapeutic. That I was depressed when I set out to see the wild horses of Okracoke was incidental; as a worthy goal in itself and not as a cure I sought them. One of the good things in life is to see wild horses.

The longest of these walks in which I accepted rides was from the Yucatan Penninsula in Mexico to Fairbanks, Alaska. This time it was to complete a form that I set out, for along the Pacific I had seen that the journeys thus far seemed to fit the pattern of a circuit of America, a circumambulation of my country.

Having perceived the pattern, it was my intention to fill in the gaps, which was then accomplished along the parts of TransCanada Highway that had been missed before. A trip down the east coast, after I'd been snowed off the Appalachian Trail in late autumn, finished the circle around the borders of the U.S.. Now my country had become my park.

But the pattern needed a final stroke; it was with a conscious wish to write a giant Greek letter "f" on the slate of North America that I embarked on the long slanted walk from Mexico to Alaska. To hang this philos , for the walker's love of what he walks over, in the museum of my mind was very satisfying, although it was an impossible work of art not only in that it couldn't be hung in an ordinary museum, but also in that it couldn't even be widely shared, given my unbent for publicity. Enough that the wind knew.

That was the last of those; the next walk would be pure, with only one ride accepted—a lapse at the Columbia River where the Oregon footpath didn't match up with Washington's. This wasn't for purist reasons however, at least not initially.

The Pacific Crest Trail was little known in early spring of '71; a few comments, some incorrect, in general hiking books, and Joseph Hazard's visionary book about a trail from Alaska to South America had been my sources. Since it was included in the National Scenic Trails Act, I assumed along with others that it must actually be a foot-trail and that, of course, the question of rides wouldn't come up.

But when the California part of the trail turned out to be mostly a gleam in the planner's eye, there were abundant chances for rides in the consequent roadwalking. I think they were rejected then only because of my being mentally still on the footpath. Only later did the realization come that not accepting lifts on a long walk is not purism but just common sense.

If you're hurrying to Canoga to see a cousin, a ride can be a big help. Aside from boosting the morale, it gets you that much closer to supper and a bed to sleep in. But on a long hike in which most of the effort is your own, a lift of 50 or even 100 miles is nothing compared to the months of hard work that has to be done regardless. To accept a ride would jar the basic rhythm, and take away some of the pride and satisfaction of accomplishment, for relatively little benefit.

Of course it would only hurt the motorist's feelings and waste his time to explain this difference in perspective, so I usually let him assume it was a question of playing the game honorably. Much later I did become a purist, regarding any discontinuity in my footsteps as a gap in the music. Then I even returned by bus to walk the pavement stretch missed along the Columbia.

The question of rides was also involved in deciding to attempt the Pacific Crest Trail in the first place. Some of the spontaneity had left the other kind of walk. That is, when tired, I had grown to expect lifts to be offered, and to resent it if they were not. That frame of mind I didn't want to be in. Better then a narrow road, to be passed by bluebirds and coyotes.

Nor did the trail disappoint; in its freer air I took long strides toward the life of a nomad, a life in which highway or grocery store became the exception rather than the norm. I grew lean, this time healthily, and my pack lightened along with me.

Can an oversize poncho serve as tarp to shed rain and save carrying a three or four pound tent? Even on the Pacific Crest where the trail is often above timberline? What size is big enough for shelter and short enough not to drag when worn as a poncho? It was a liberal education to hear the back and legs argue for simplicity.

If you could have asked Thoreau why a simpler life is better, I think his answer would have been philosophical. But any nomad can answer immediately and decisively: simplicity makes a lighter pack. It may be that Thoreau lost the battle for simplicity as soon as he grew beans.

For where will you store beans if not in a cabin? And shouldn't the cabin walls be thicker in case someone tries to steal my beans? And what if the hoe breaks, better deposit an extra one in the attic. With all the room there, of course Aunt Agatha's yearbook should be kept and that china doorknob, in case they are needed.

An agricultural civilization is certainly richer in material possessions and more efficient in that it can support millions more people, but is that all there is to life? What if we were meant to walk with springing step through valleys and over mountain passes, against a sky of meaning with the Solomonic breeze dividing its attention between face and hatbrim?

In that case a tile roof or tent is on the heavy side and we may opt for a seven-by-nine-foot coated nylon poncho-tarp, which is adequate shelter even on the Pacific Crest Trail if camps are made in timbered passes rather than on windswept ridges.

A narrower one, five-by-nine, sufficed for my first Crest Trail hike when no other could be found. I'm tall; if you're a more sensible size like Napoleon, the larger commercial ponchos might work. The six-footer could convert a tarp with tie-tapes (that give more room when it is rigged as shelter) into a poncho by cutting out a hole and sewing on a hood. Never omit the latter! Most heat loss is from the head and neck; a sewn-on hood, not one misplaced or lost in the wind, may save your life in a storm.

Tarps have another advantage over tents; they accommodate campfires better. It's not handy in a rain to tend the fire from a tent, but with a tarp one just raises the roof beam and cooks merrily on.

And fire, not dog, is man's best friend. If one is walking a long way it is nearly indispensable. For going light and cheap, for not having to worry whether the next little store has white gas to sell, for warmth and dryness in bad weather, and for never-failing cozy cheer, there's no surpassing man's first and most beautiful alchemy, wood's aurification.

Nor should one contemplating the nomadic life scorn to perfect his equipment, since it probably is not possible to separate a being from the tools which enable it to meld into, and fruitfully interact with, its environment. The Plains Indian without a horse is not a Plains Indian; an American without a car is now virtually unthinkable. Thus one of the meanings of my walks—they were a mental, physiological, and social exploration of what the phrase car-less American might mean.

The tarp then is light, and effective after some practice in rigging it to meet various weathers; an aluminum spoon will do, and a fork can readily be dispensed with. But what about books and baths, music and company?

My taste in reading shifted from a mere bias toward the best to a wholehearted dedication. To questioners I would claim to have enrolled in Penguin Classical University, and would tease that only Homer and Aeschylus, Herodotus and Thucydides are as worth their ounces as a big chocolate bar.

These paperbacks might be kept if I knew someone who would enjoy them as a mailed present, but often they were used, a few pages at a time, as firestarters. This lent a poignant urgency to what I read, knowing that before long it would be lost in flame. Rest well, Pericles and Pindar, it is only your shadows, sculpted in printer's ink, that are consumed in my needfire.

In the noon of a day after the day you had to bathe or die of filth comes a brook, irrigation ditch, or snow-melt pool among dark rocks. Even a bird sauna would do by now and there's no denying the ritual essence of the act. First the clothes are washed so they can be drying on a bush or stretched line of tarp cord. (If that brook comes off a glacier, to stand in it doing laundry is to nearly freeze the lowers. Better bend, bend, brother.)

Now for the sacrifice itself. Some say soap up first to rob the ice god of his due, others take their baptism neat. In any case there is the crash of water against sin, the drowning of error in a quicker dying than sleep.

But how the rebirth does tingle! In an afterglow of sun-fire comes the prose of lunch, a few pages of classic, perhaps a nod. Then almost dry clothes are fresh against the skin; a pilgrim may walk on, sober, wise, clean as the citizen. So it's rare, why shouldn't the best things be?

Does the step falter, for want of tuning? See, there in the sky is the Lyre with which Orpheus "charmed the stones and chained the rivers in their courses". It may be lost to earth but the bird remembers, the coyote in concert, and even solitary man.

What's that on your shoulder, stranger, with a silver singing wire? I cain't play hardly nothing, friend. Sit right there and string it, liar; there never was an illiterate musician. His very pauses are grammar. Encore and deck the hills with joyful noise before we walk on. It was done.

If you have the gift, hiker, stay off my path or pay a tax. What should the robber baron's castle be full of but song? And then I met the sister of Orpheus in the hills of Virginia and followed her to Maine. But that story or flute is already told, and even a faint echo would be treason.

Of company now there is also too little, and it moves on too soon. If one talks to himself, has he a fool for client? On the first Pacific Crest there was company part way, my son, and on the last Appalachian the friends of piccolo would swap supper mulligan and chocolate. In between there were warmhearted too-brief friends. But who knows what is the proper interval for friendship? Maybe we are meant to yearn.

All right, one can't do without these things; he suffers a sea change, unrich. Even now I talk too much, like an ancient mariner. And the white bird of my loves lives on around me, in that tree, on that rock valiant against the wind.

Walking as a way of life is incomplete in other ways, as least in the manner of my practicing. Aside from a short spell picking apples in Oregon, there was no attempt to make it self-supporting; I lived frankly and frugally off savings, which required almost a vow of poverty.

I remember relief apples from a Depression childhood, and having to neglect dental work while a student. This wasn't like that; I had money, but knew it equalled freedom and meant to stretch it out as long as possible. When I gathered dandelions or knocked over a grouse, filled up on berries or scavenged rabbit from a cougar's kill it wasn't a play-game to be applauded by other courtier-shepherds.

Every one of those dollars saved meant, then, another day more I could walk free, bound to no man's schedule, answerable only to wind and rain and the seasonal zodiac. The Apaches were called gut-eaters by cowboys, because they wasted none of the meat. I became like that; even orange peels were saved and dried to flavor tea.

Sometimes this meanness was depressing, as when I lived sober among drunks in the missions of Portland, but often it was exhilarating to realize how little one could live on. Poverty, if one can choose it, is an honorable profession. And you waste little time deciding between automobiles all having four wheels.

The sparseness of such a life was relieved from time to time by the wonderful generosity of friends and relatives, even strangers, when I wandered like a pilgrim of India with his rice bowl, but mostly I filled that bowl myself by renouncing electric toothbrushes. It is said that the ancient Greeks lived freer than we do because of what they did without. I approached that ideal, but never managed to dispense with breakfast.

Another drawback to long-walking is that it seems essentially unfamilial. And why should a woman jump at the chance to rear her infants under hotel pines? It may justly be argued that my two children are already enough hostages to time, but in fact I have yearned for another family.

Not wanting more for ostentation, who can blame the peasant or spawning salmon for fearing that too small a following may have none survive war or foul pestilence? Not that I would overpopulate, Lord, but one or two more for the sake of the odds? And is there a more tender mingling than chromosomal, with its evidence that grows to see the sun, to smile and perhaps submit theses?

If the nomadic way is incomplete, isn't a settled existence even more so, with shortcomings barely concealed by its being the only life we know? How can a creature used to roaming the wide earth for untold millenia get really used to being cooped up in a house?

Nor was the hunting-gathering life a bad one. A convenient lie we told ourselves with Hobbes, that it was "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short". The revisionist anthropologists have concluded that hunter-gatherers were in fact the first affluent society, with twelve to twenty-hour work weeks, abundant, nutritious diets, and leisure to create rock paintings, oral literature, music and dance.

Before the hoe, our forebears were superb ecologists who knew the use of every plant and when each animal would visit the water hole. This soft-technological prowess enabled them to live hard but well, as Kung Bushmen still do even in the Kalahari Desert of Africa.

And one of the main occupations of their leisure was talk, just like Appalachian Trail hikers. If it is true as some claim that the fundamental basis of our culture is a brilliant talent for language (which precedes, and is even independent of, writing), then it might very well be the case that we are still living off the intellectual capital accumulated around hunter-gatherer campfires.

But just physical well-being alone might cause one to reject city life. Tell me true, if you could choose, would you prefer riding in subways and breathing corruption to "the visual acuity of the Bushman who can see four moons of Jupiter with the unaided eye and can hear a single-engined light plane seventy miles away"?

Of course we can't choose; the hunting-gathering life is closed to us (and that must have been an exceptional Bushman on a moonless night). But we might just be able, with keen enough insight into, and appreciation of, other ways of living, to make better decisions between those roads to the future still open. And to have caught by the long walks even a pale glimpse of this archaic free life has seemed a priceless gift to me.

After months and years in a new-found-land, perhaps even the patronymic is lost. Your pulse quickens to another order of being, you may learn how important is night and the wondrous, still little known visions thereof. Some scholar once said: the dream is the true god of the primitive mind. You begin to believe a little in that god.

But it wasn't only this more vibrant life that my soul reached out to. There was the grail of achievement. Even in the beginning when motorists aided me by offering rides there would be rejoicing in joint accomplishment at the end of a journey. Then came the special blessedness of Monument 78, Canadian line, end of a hike by my own effort of the whole length of the land from southern border to northern, a three-flagger.

Now the jigsaw puzzle of America's map was fitted together in a way never to be cast asunder. The earth I trod was somehow mine; with a profound gratitude I lay on the concrete porch of Manning Park's Nature House, watching the aurora borealis flash its congratulations. There was clearly no way for this exaltation to increase, but it did. With a fifteen-month pure walk from Atlantic to Pacific, a finishing of the Appalachian Trail the first time, and another three-flagger from Arizona's deserts to Montana's sweet-watered forests, I simply climbed higher.

Then came the scarcely credible horseshoe when without even blue oxen company I sought to weld Pacific Crest to Appalachian by walking between their southern bases, and heard the music of a continent. It was too far. I was out of my league, but, with "a little help from my friends" and by the grace of God, I got it done.

And now the strength of those hills and reflection of that glory have carried me through grim months of loss to another completion, dear wedding guest. And, sure that a walking stick feels better to my hand than a steering wheel, I must take leave of you.

The last wild Indian of California, Ishi, could not manage goodbye, but had to resort to euphemism. I go, you go another way. May your road have bright sun, cool breezes, and birdsong to gladden the heart as you, too, walk in beauty.

Where have you been, Billy-boy, Billy-boy? Where have you been, roaming Billy? I have been occupied with the mystery of what it means to take up one's bed and walk. I carried it on the ridges and in the valleys of North America. For what Greek letter or etymological reason? "Greater Ireland" and "Vinland the Good", referring to St. Brendan and Leif Ericson's western journeys, are not the oddest names for our green home. That distinction belongs to "Turtle Island". This weird term for the continent must be a linguistic fossil, must date to a primal journey, for who but fresh arrivals from Asia would notice that North America is unusually rich in turtles? The house-backed one, soft-shelled man, was exploring Turtle Island.

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