Today marks the 17th hike of the year. 17 in 60 days. A little more than 1 hike for every 4 days. It’s 33% or 1/3 the way to my year-end goal of 52 hikes.
I can only hope I’ve learned something over the course of all these miles.
- I’ve learned that I can accomplish things even when I feel lost, listless, or lonely.
- I have excellent calves.
- You can lose weight and still not fit into your old skinny jeans, because calf muscles are the bane of “skinny jeans” (and I love my excellently large calves, so who needs skinny jeans?!?).
- Asthma sucks, or {rather} doesn’t let you suck air… But slowing down going uphill means I’m still alive.
- I do, however, suck at journaling.
- You can “read” a lot of books while you hike (thank you, Audible and Libby), but sometimes the best sounds are the sounds of silence, of birds, of the squelching mud beneath your boots, or the wind whistling through the silver hoops that are blissfully dangling from your earlobes.
- You can overthink a lot of things.
- You can experience revelations. Some of which will be painful, but still so so good.
- You can cry and hike, sometimes just ‘cuz it’s friggin’ cold and the wind is burning your eyeballs.
- If you let the wind and dust attack your eyeballs too much, you can develop a conjunctival cyst and be forced to wear sunglasses as goggles and use eyedrops.
- Hip pain and knee pain and ankle pain are real. And I have sung Dem Bones too many times trying to avoid the reality of ow!ow!OW!
Today’s hike was a muddy one. But it felt good. Another hike on Friday will make 4 this week.
But if 17 hikes is a lot, riddle me this. How can I have applied to well over 100 jobs and still be waiting for the next thing? Until then… I hike.
Power of Craft Compels You 