I was so sad last night. I called gwen and told her all about it, and as usual she had good things to say; reminding me to do the stuff I’m supposed to do. Think the stuff I’m supposed to think and try to toss out the bad.
I miss home is what it boils down to. Miss my friends so much, you all…my tender little family.
So…I woke up this morning determined to try again.
And it was a beautiful day.
Started out a little funky as is want to happen around here.
I didn’t wanna wake up for one thing. And the drumming from the monks seemed unusually loud and actually a little aggressive. Jun-san and Gilberto are both going through stuff too and I think they were taking it out on the poor drums.
This walk has even stressed out our Buddhists. Criminy, imagine that.
But wake I did. And packed and got my tea and went to circle and found myself a seat on the bus and started to listen to the Indigo Girls on the ipod. And then I noticed that people were getting off the bus.
“Maggie,” she was sitting next to me, “why are we getting off?” I said, pulling off my headphones.
“Out of gas.”
Oh for pete sakes.
So Patrick and I strolled back over to our former campsite and played a bit with Addie and Booger. Got some more tea and coffee from Kathleen Café. And waited. Waited some more.
Eventually a gallon of gas was delivered and we piled back on…went to the gas station. Had more coffee and tea, took a look at the newspaper with our pictures in it. Noticed that the day was getting later and later and how happy we were to have to wake up at 4am only to sit around all morning and watch the sun rise higher into the sky. Hot walk.
Dammit.
But, we caught up to the walk at the first rest break (a bunch of walkers had already started, they had gotten rides in the vans and such) – and so we only missed 3 miles of the day.
So, let me tell you what’s going on with me and walking right now.
I ran, I think two days last week. There were rest days in there. Kitchen duty. Trash detail. Hooky. I don’t think I’ve walked a full day in like 7 or 8 days. Unheard of for me…and while it didn’t bother me at the time, I was really looking forward to walking today. For the meditation of it. The camradarie. The doing…it’s become such normal behavior to walk 16 or 18 miles that not to do it for a while just started feeling wrong.
The first 3 miles I walked alongside Patrick. We didn’t talk much. I didn’t feel like talking really. Just wanted to wake up and work through my conversation with gwen, check in with myself, feel my body move.
But the next three miles I walked with Ray and we had the most…I don’t know, just timely conversation about spirituality and where we are and what we are learning on this walk.
I love listening to Ray’s voice – he’s got this thick Canadian accent and a soft, deep voice and he speaks very slowly…and when he wants to talk, he’s generally got something to say…so it’s worth the patience of waiting for the next word. The next sentence. And when he’s talking about himself, he always starts off with, “For me….” And it’s just sort of Ray-sweet.
I would love to tell you Ray’s story, but I haven’t asked him if I could post it here, so I won’t just yet. But let me tell you that he’s got one of those inspirational stories where you go, “man…I’m so glad you’re here to tell me about that.”
We talked about how we felt placed here, on this walk, with these people. There are so few of us that it doesn’t seem accidental in the least. Goddess makes no mistakes.
“We get tested,” Ray says, “we will get those traps put in front of us until we learn to ask for help in stepping around them. I know my Father will take care of me. He tells me so every morning when I am given the gift of another day. I can give him all my burdens. My worries.”
He told me that he found the challenges of life “fun.” I laughed, feeling not so amused by a lot these days.
“No, they are. These are the good things in life. These challenges. The wisdom to know the difference, that’s what we learn. They’re fun because Creator is giving us these gifts to help us refine ourselves…I used to think I was perfect, back then. I was miserable in it. Now, I know…I am perfect only in the eyes of my Father, and I am given the opportunity to refine myself so I can be of better service to Him.”
These kinds of things, we talked about them for two hours…walking 6 or 7 miles down the road. At one point I found the conversation so moving that I wanted to weep for the joy of it.
These have been the gifts of this walk. Meeting these people and connecting with them at those levels. I love Ray, and we don’t get a lot of chance to talk…and I just appreciate his insight and his wisdom so much. He has found acceptance in something that I am really struggling with right now, and…it was just so helpful today.
“I see you have strength. Like me, I have strength. But it’s okay to be weak, that’s where we get our strength from. By humbling ourselves and asking for what we need from our Creator.”
It was really the same conversation I had last night with gwen. It was just unexpected out there, on the highway. We hadn’t really started out talking about anything really. And neither one of us revealed anything personal that was going on with us – but I have an idea what his stuff was, and he can probably gander at mine.
We talked about the walk and how to stay positive in it. We talked about how grateful we were to have survived the whole thing, and how to look at it positively over these next two weeks. Try to remember why we’re here and remember the people no longer with us and take all that into D.C.
We only have something like 7 or 8 actual walking days left. Do you know, they are actually becoming precious to me now? I felt so happy out there on the road today with everyone. Jen walked for a bit, Ammon came back from his run and walked a bit. Kathleen was out there. Patrick. And Ray. Kid would pop up at intervals and give us high fives.
At one point one of our support vehicles did something stupid and almost got rear-ended by a semi but…that’s kinda just par for the course. Everyone was fine.
But, this is kind of it you guys. We crossed into Virginia this morning. It’s our last state. We have something like 400 miles left to go. We’ve done over 4400. We arrive outside of D.C. on July 4th for a 3-day rest period and then walk into our final camp on July 7th where we will spend 3 days doing some sort of cultural exchange thing…and then we walk onto the Mall on the 11th.
And, there was an energy to our walk today that reflected that. People who never walk were walking. Flags were being carried that haven’t been carried in forever. Singing of Native songs were happening on both ends of the line along with the drumming (less aggressively I might add) from our monks.
You know what it felt like as we were coming into Clarksville this afternoon? It felt like the beginning of the walk. With all that hope and excitement and enthusiasm.
And as I walked in between Ray and Patrick, I felt gratitude like I haven’t felt in weeks.
And that’s a blessing. And those are the moments I’m gonna keep looking for over the next 16 days, ‘cause that’s all we got left. I wanna try and make it good.
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