PCT Day 30 – World Stage

Campsite at mile 404 to campsite at mile 423

I sometimes worry that I won’t remember my own life, that I’ll look back from old age and see only vague shapes and darkness. I worry that all these years will have been wasted on someone who struggles to find presence. Perhaps this is a result of having an over active brain of sorts. One that’s usually thinking about one or more things while my body navigates through the world with relative autonomy. Am I ever truly paying attention? What does that feel like? But then, conversely, what else am I doing while I walk for hours, uninterrupted by consumable media and distraction? Maybe this absence of input is why I feel most myself when hiking long distances through the mountains. There is nothing but the wild to draw my attention, and more importantly, nobody for whom I need to perform. It’s a rare thing to simply be without feeling the eyes of others. To simply look without being sold or told or influenced.

For example, today I saw a black lizard. Only this time, for the first time, I noticed that it wasn’t simply black, but flecked with iridescent green and blue. I have walked hundreds of miles and seen nearly as many of these lizards and yet only today did I notice their lovely colors. This is why I want to be out here. I want to look at everything, see it change around me slowly, by degrees. Nothing is quick when observation is dictated by walking pace. Time and scale feel not only immeasurable, but also remarkable. That any one thing could come to exist in a world as diverse and vast as our own.

How special I must be then. That of all the star dust in all the universe there came to be a solar system capable of producing a single marvelous planet on which all sorts of beautiful life exists, and from that massive spinning ball of life I managed to spring forth with sentience and a body – all of which aligned to have me standing on a hillside a cool breeze dancing over my skin. Alive, undeniably alive and able to see it all. It’s a thing of such improbability that I can only observe it in small doses. Like tonight, I can see it tonight.

From our campsite the mountains roll away in ever darkening lines, some porcupined with trees, others smooth rock. The airborne dust which muted everything during the day now provides gentle gradation when paired with the setting sun. Below and far away the lights of the inland empire blink into existence. Above and further away airplanes bound for LAX leave their fluffy trails in the sky, lit pink and orange, their altitude buying them some last rays of sunlight. I look at the scene for a long time, reluctant to pull closed the tent door. Like dropping the curtain during the last act of a play, I don’t want to miss anything.

Finally finally the last of the warm colors leave the sky, replaced by the cool blue of the moon casting it’s ghostly shadows over the dark land. I crawl into our tent, this little bubble of warmth and down. The scene has ended for us daytime creatures and we must exit the stage for the unseen nightly dramas of the bats and coyotes. Though over, I am glad to have been a part of it.