September 16, 2023
Permission
Early in the evening the wind gusts and dried pine needles fall onto the rain fly above my head.
I walk out to the shoreline above Echo Bay. The breeze shooting up from the water is cold and it makes the hair on my arms stand up and it drives me to shiver and then I smile. The dry dead tree branches scrape against each other and I watch the boaters who didn’t set their anchor right scramble to find a new mooring.
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At the foot of the tent sit a few rusty cleat prints, a snapshot in time from when Kristen and I both lived in this tent, slowly cycling across distant parts of this country for months on end. In the morning I start to make my way home. I’m happy about this. It’s time to go back.
But this week has meant so much to me — and to all of us. Getting back to the road has returned to me a central part of myself that’s been stowed away for more than six years. Juniper starting kindergarten has given her the chance to take a large step forward in the long, slow journey away from our world and into her own. And as Juniper’s path opens up, so too does Kristen’s, with the time and space that don't exist when you're the full-time parent of a fierce little kid.
I've hiked 18 miles in the last day and a half and I'm almost out of food, but the weight of tiredness is strong enough to drown out the light waves of hunger. I drift off to sleep in the darkness to the crazy laughs of rich old white boaters, all slightly sauced.
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Georgous pictures, peaceful reading. Hope you will be able to share another adventure even a tiny one with your family.
7 months ago