On my way to the CDT

I am on the train to Glacier. I will be on the train for three days. 

Many thoughts come to mind. 

I’m so lucky to have a partner who puts up with me being myself, living my life, doing crazy stuff like this big adventure. I love him for this. 

I’m going to miss my birds. Ariel laid her belly on my arm this morning like when she’s being a blankie bird. Fergie is 30 years old this year. I hope she doesn’t die while I’m gone. 

It has been 13 years since I last did something like this. I survived 11 years of work to buy, hopefully, 11 years of freedom.

I am reading a book about how to do nothing. It starts with a story of a useless tree, the last one left in a cut down forest. Of no use to the sawmill, it is free to live. To hike a long trail is sort of a radical act of similar uselessness. 

I am old and afraid I will fail at it. 

I tried to catch a glimpse of Storke tower on my way through town. I thought of the years I sat working in its shadow. I find it hard to believe I do not belong there anymore. I won’t be back in my chair. I won’t see my coworkers again. I may never know what becomes of the things I worked on. Those people, my coworkers, are sitting there right now. I tried to catch a glimpse but I did not see the tower. 

I saw Point Conception. And pelicans and other sea birds and llamas and a deer and Vandenberg and SpaceX. I saw sea otters and sea lions and seals. 

And I cried thinking of all these things and the great unknown unspooling  ahead of me.