Today was hard, vaguely post apocalyptic, and, I can not stress enough that it was windy. The storm we have been both running from and enclosed in for two days caught up to us with a cold indifference to our discomfort.
I’ve spent a great deal of today looking down, finding my foot placements or bowing my head to an unrelenting wind — and most of today I’ve seen ants. Today I feel like an ant — small and carrying more than I should, being pushed back by the wind and finding my way forward again, Watching my fellow hikers turn tiny as ants as they climb high onto the cliff face I know that I too will soon traverse.
When we started planning for this trip the trail was such a large, all encompassing idea that it is strange to now have it shrunk to the foot-wide path laid under my feet for what now adds up to eighty miles.
I think a lot about the past on this trip. Often I think of Erin Potter on the first ride of Bike and Build, long before I knew I was capable of these things. She told me that my legs could go forever and helped me get out of my head using mantras.
I didn’t believe her then, but your legs really do a great deal when they are asked, and if you don’t sabotage them with doubts and fears, who knows how far they really can carry you.
We keep marching on, despite blisters or brutal winds we keep moving forward.
Ants may seem like inglorious spirit animals but today, for this little bug nestled in a tiny tent in a giant world, today I’m an ant.
