Getting back to normal

Bear bags in the Smokies

I remember those early days - way back in late March and early April.  That first time I hung a bear bag... in the cold rain (that turned to snow by morning).  I remember the first night I did NOT hang a bear bag... and never did again unless a hiking partner begged me to (and offered to do it for me).  I had learned that food was safer from bears in my occupied tent than hanging in a tree.  And I was still just as safe too.

This is Uke!!!

I remember the first person I shared a 2-person tent with.  Uke... you are awesome!  We had decided to night hike and had taken off from the shelter at 2 AM.  I had horrible stomach pain, and finally Uke decided we were just going to sleep.  Set up tent, use food bags as pillows (first time!), and lay down.  Uke snores, and likes to take up room in his tent.  I sleep for a while, but then I get up and feel much better.  I suggest to Uke that we keep going.  He mumbles something incoherent.  So, I leave a thank you note in his shoe and keep going solo.  Still being afraid of bears, I keep singing the "Go away bear" song.  Ah, yes, in our early days - we were still afraid of bears.

I remember all the awkward conversations at first.  "What's your trail name?"  "Oh, you don't have one? Ummm..."  We still weren't sure what the Trail etiquette was.  Could we ask for their real name?  Or where they were from?  Could we pop our blisters on the same log as they were eating dinner?  We all went well out of sight to change clothes - before we learned to change in our sleeping bags or just change in front of people.  Oh yeah, that was when we still changed clothes.

I remember taking the pack on and off and on and off and on and off.  Leave camp with two jackets, gloves, and buff (thingy that goes over my head).  In a couple hundred yards, get too warm.  Take off pack, put away gloves, buff and jacket.  Put pack on.  Walk another 0.3 miles.  Stop, take pack off, take off other jacket and stow it away.  Put pack back on.  Walk 50 feet before you realized you forgot to have a drink of water before putting pack back on.  Stop, take pack off, get drink of water, put pack on.  In that time, you get a little chilly, so you put the jacket back on.  Walk another 1/2 a mile trying to figure out why you are so hot when you were cold just a few minutes ago.  Finally, stop again, take pack off, put away jacket, put pack on.  And so on.  You get the picture.  Eventually, I learned to just leave camp a little chilly and to camel up on water before leaving.  You'll warm up and be fine.  Oh, and put snacks in your pockets, not your pack.

All these little things that make life sooooooo much easier on the Trail.  All these things that aren't important enough to really write home about (or a blog for that matter).  All these things that - as they became natural, routine, normal - we didn't have to think about them or be taught.  We just sort of eased into the cadence of the Trail.

Now that I'm back, I'm having to find the new (or former) cadence of life NOT in the woods.  I have more stuff - that's OK.  I need to spend more time on the computer - that's OK.  Makeup is not a necessary evil; it can be good and fun.  I actually will receive money for some work I do rather than just eating in exchange for food or a floor to sleep on.

Today, I picked up my backpack for the first time since getting back to Wisconsin.  There was a little twinge of nostalgia, that feeling of normalcy that I should be packing up and heaving it up onto my back.  It felt like home.  But that isn't home.  It's merely normal.  I've been staying at my parent's the past couple weeks - on the porch with all the windows open.  My "civilized" clothes are in a suitcase, and I'm still sleeping under a sleeping bag (though not my down one from the Trail).  That was beginning to feel normal - sort of a halfway house between "real civilized" living and being in the woods.  It still wasn't home (though I love my parents, don't get me wrong).  Now that I'm moving to where I'll be renting, it's another step to find normalcy in the permanence of non-Trail life.  Stop living out of bags altogether.  Sleep where there are no windows to the fresh air.  I'll be in the city where I'll actually have to drive somewhere I could walk on non-lawn grass or a wooded path.  But that place isn't home either.  But what I'm seeing in all the transitions I've had to make - to the Trail and back off of it - it will all become normal.  And maybe normal IS home.  Not sure.

My "toncho" blowing in the wind - tent by night, poncho by rain!  Home sweet home!