Tethered In Wide Open Spaces

“You are not the captain of your life. God damn, it’s hard, but it’s the inevitable truth. And with time, you do experience it as sweet relief.

Then something shifts. It might be a simple coincidence that presents itself, but one that it so truly random that you have to take note. A sliding door moment.

When we leap into the unknown, we always land safely.

We just do.

We free fall for a bit, but then as we’re falling, we grow angel wings that carry us to our destination. The problem is- we all want to go out and buy ourselves a set of angel wings first, before we jump. But sweetheart, there’s no such thing as an angel wing shop.

You have to jump first.

In our culture, we want guarantees. When we can learn to make leaps without them, then things really start to look different.”

- “First We Make The Beast Beautiful”, Sarah Wilson

I woke up in the guest bedroom of Rocks’ creek side cottage on Sunday, August 20th.

Not in the foothills of the Pemigewasset Wilderness, immersed in the White Mountain National Forest.

Where I had planned to be a mere 24 hours prior.

Because I fail at moderation, I planned to summit the remaining 30 of the White Mountains’ 48, 4,000 foot peaks in a single return visit to New Hampshire.

I wanted to be one of the ever so elite “48’ers”.

While I was thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail, I summited 18 of these queens without intention, but rather necessity.

And I despised every…single…one…of them.

The bouldering. The rebar. The night hikes. The misdirection. The wind above tree line. The sideways hail above tree line. The pain in my knees as I carried myself back down below the tree line.

The fatigue of having 1,800 miles behind me and still nearly 400 more to go.

The views from the top were straight Chanel, but they fed me with just enough nosh to fuel my mind to carry my feet to the next high peak.

But it was when I solo’ed the remainder of the Vermont Long Trail in the fall of 2022 that I fell in love with these beasts. Their majesty. Their history. Their demand of my body and my mind as a solo hiker. Of my insecurities. When I had no one else to coach me up and over the ravines and through the arctic nights. When I reached the summit of the first 4K climb that I had conquered to date in complete solitude.

Camel’s Hump.

That is when I knew that I had developed both the capability and the appetite for the completion of New Hampshire’s 48.

10 months of logistical planning followed.

Park at Hale Brook Trailhead. Take Zealand Trail to Twinway Trail. Over Mount Zealand to the Bondcliff Trail. Summit West Bond. Mount Bond. Then Bondcliff. Guyot Shelter for a night’s rest. Back to Twinway in the morning. Up to the top of South Twin Mountain. And then back down to the Twin Spur Trail. Up and over North Twin. Cut across the Fire Warden’s Trail. Unmaintained but blazed to the summit of Mount Hale. Taking Hale Brook Trail back…to…the…car.

A two day snippet of my 28 day plan to ride the Whites to completion.

And if you recall, I categorically do not like to hike.

But I do love the feeling of having a goal that the rain can’t stop. Of savoring a hot shower that isn’t on tap as it is at home. Of sitting on a boulder smack dab in the middle of the trail, feeling weak and hopeless, shivering and without enough food to give me the strength to get to the top.

But finding the strength to get there anyway because I have no other choice.

But to keep walking.

To keep moving forward.

To finish what I start.

Came Waumbek.

Came Mount Hale.

And then came…

…Mount COVID.

The most challenging summit of all, for it was one that I hadn’t planned for but that I had to summit.

Acceptance.

Humility in not having the capability to finish what I set out to accomplish.

My quest ended just as quickly as it had begun by the virus that introduced itself to us in March of 2020 and still remains a serious threat.

Not only was I not well enough to ascend and descend 1,000’s of feet per day for the foreseeable future, but I had to leave the hostel, my base camp, to protect the health and the hikes of others. Others that were a mere 372 miles from the mothership, Mamma Katahdin, just as I had been 24 months ago.

There is a loss of control when something is taken from us without our consent. And in this loss, more so than conquering the climbs themselves, it was my need to scream from their summits. To give to the wind, my pain. My truth. The realities that have been my year in color.

I was tethered in a wide open space.

“Well, darkness has a hunger that’s insatiable

And lightness has a call that’s hard to hear

I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains

I looked to the children, I drank from the fountains

But there’s more to one answer to these questions

Pointing me in a crooked line

And the less I seek my source for some definitive

The closer I am to fine”

“Closer To Fine”, Brandi Carlisle and Catherine Carlisle

We must learn to greet, to accept, to trust the serendipity of what we cannot yet see.

Trust the playbooks of the silver linings.

The sliding door moments.

A door that my 75 and 76 year-old parents let themselves in through at 1:30 am very late last Monday night.

“Sarah! SAR-AH! SARAHHHHHHHH!”

Was I dreaming?

Or were they really screaming?

Or what in the actual hell was happening?

I rolled onto my back from a right-sided fetal position and lowered the covers from my nape. I had been sleeping so soundly.

“Sar! Sar! Are you up here??”

The intruders were clearly now upstairs.

As I turned the corner from my bedroom and into the hallway, my mother pulled me into her arms without warning, “Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my GOD! Charlie, she is ALIVE! She is up here!”

I had sent a text message to my parents the evening before.

It read:

“There were two skunks aggressively fighting in the backyard when I took the trash out. They sounded like damn hyenas! I made a run for the can, and they f*&%!#$ sprayed me! It was terrifying. I’m dyingggg!”

End quote.

Public service announcement: Telling two Baby Boomers who do not categorically understand the prose of text message, let alone without a tearing, laughing smily emoji, is highly ill advised.

They thought that I was laying deceased in my back lawn.

From a rabid skunk attack.

So they performed a wellness check.

I have now been the recipient of a wellness check.

A noble notch added to the belt of my 2023.

Yet, an occurrence so truly random that I had to take note.

Shift my perspective.

This disruption was not an inconvenience, but rather a gift.

Two parents that cared for me and my well being to the point of getting out of bed in the wee hours of the night, Steeler flannels and all, relinquishing their parking space. Even without the lawn chairs to hold the coveted spot.

Tethered.

“You may not see it today or tomorrow, but you will look back in a few years and be absolutely perplexed and awed by how every little thing added up and brought you somewhere wonderful, where you’ve always wanted to be. You will be grateful that things didn’t work out the way that you once wanted them to.”

When Amanda asked me join forces with her, I felt as if I was looking back at my building blocks, at every little thing that has added up and brought me to my “now”.

To somewhere completely wonderful.

I invite you to join me on Sunday, November 5th in Pittsburgh’s Frick Park for a very special event. We will hike together. We will write together. We will share stories. You will learn of my physical and emotional journey while on the Appalachian Trail and hear excerpts from my debut memoir. I will ask you questions that will inspire you to look at your relationship with nature, with uncertainty, and with yourself in a deeper way.

Let’s walk into our fears together.

Tethered to the unconventional.

Ken and I met at Angels Rest Hiker’s Haven during our thru hikes of the Appalachian Trail in May of 2021. Having never stepped foot on actual trail together, we planned to partner in our completion of New Hampshire’s 48.

Toasting to our quest at Lincoln, New Hampshire’s One Love Brewery.

What I thought to be my 2nd summit at the time, ended up being my last of the trip.

I was unknowingly steps away from life’s other plans.

A reminder to stay present.

Read that again.

Infirmary at Rocks’ cottage, “Fatal Floral”.

When life gives you lemons, quarantines with friends, they become your family. And you watch Deliverance. And eat monster grilled cheese sandwiches on terrible bread. With too many tomatoes. And sip on Hot Toddies. And you laugh, together. And you share, together. And you cry, together.

And you learn to trust in the serendipity of the plans that you didn’t have for yourself, but that you would have chosen if you would have known.

Plant baby daycare instructions for Suellen.

Angela and Zoey in the 412!

Happy birthday Misana!

Brandi Carlisle and Pink, show-stopping in my pretty city.

Allison sold me my insurance plan when I was left without one after quitting my job to live in the woods for 7 months.

She asked questions. I asked them back. And we shared our stories, both hungry for human connection and new opportunity. All over a tele-call during the thick of the 2020 COVID shutdown.

An insurance agent, turned soul sister, we met for the first time this August over coffee and homemade Old Fashioned doughnuts.

Say “Yes”.

Happy 76th, Dad!

Smoked Trout and Turmeric Eggs at Cafe Roze, East Nashville.

And on Sundays, Larry Lee and I play Scrabble.

Dunbar Cave State Park, Clarksville, Tennessee.

An honor to witness you promising your love for life, Alyssa O’Hallaron!

My Father, and his “baby” sister and brother at the 2023 Cubbage Hill Reunion.

Rotary Nature Park, Sango, Tennessee.

New River Gorge National Park, Fayetteville, West Virginia.

New River Gorge Bridge.

Clouds are the mountains of the sky.

I wrote about my time in the Blue Ridge as I flew over them, now two years later.

600 mph vs. 3, taking me 90 minutes to traverse what took me 2 months when on foot.

Air travel is our quickest form of transportation, a modern convenience or a theft of beauty?

A tether.