In Between

No one belongs in an airport. Everyone is there simply to pass time, waiting to go somewhere else. I experience this strange sense of loneliness and disconnection when I am in an airport. Maybe it’s because I still have a stupid phone and I don’t carry a computer. Being able to stay connected electronically to the office, home, or friends seems to be the way most people deal with the limbo-land of an airport. It’s a really good way to avoid that feeling. Of course, it doesn’t help me because I have even fewer strangers that I can impose upon for a conversation to pass the time.

I got to thinking about my time on the trail. I’ll start in Springer Mountain, and end on Mount Katahdin. Every step in between will be… well, in between. Between destinations, between jobs, between who I was when I started and who I’ll be when I finish – like the in between of an airport. I will not belong anywhere for half a year. That’s a very lonely prospect, in a sense. It’s all fine and well to sit in an airport and watch people for a few hours, imagining their conversations and their high scores for Angry Birds. It’s another to intentionally choose to dwell in that place for several months.

On the other hand, there is an anticipation and freedom that comes from not belonging. The world is a white canvas just waiting to be painted. I can choose to go in any direction, using any medium I wish to begin the artwork. This past week, I got to intersect with several other people – people I would not have met had I chosen to avoid my loneliness by staying connected to friends several states away while I was waiting for my connecting flight. I learned about Barbados and sailing and bartending from a guy named Neil. I learned a little about weather in Maine from an older woman who lives near Mt. Katahdin. I never thought I’d meet a person who judges dog shows, and yet, there she was flying home. I’ll probably never see these folks again in my life, but they were in front of me for a moment, and I am a better person for meeting them. And maybe they are better for meeting me too – I can hope so.

I think that is how I will combat loneliness on the trail. I won’t avoid it, but I’ll look around me to see who and/or what I can connect with in that moment. I’m looking forward to all the conversations I’ll hear and faces I’ll see. I can be grateful for all the alone time that I can spend talking to God, perhaps praying for the very folks that I met in the shelter the night before and shared some under-cooked beans with (I HAVE to get better at camp cooking!). When I stand in the place of anticipation for the present moment, rather than wishing for a different place or time, loneliness really doesn’t seem that big or bad a thing to deal with.