Into My Own

Over the past year or two I have been overtaken with a great passion for the idea of thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail, which is to say, starting at the trail head in Georgia and over the course of about six months doing one continuous hike to the terminus on the summit of Mt. Katahdin in Maine.  Exactly why I am so obsessed with this desire is hard to explain, since I freely admit for the most part I am quite content to sit quietly at home with my books and tea, surrounded by various collections of beautiful objects.  I think there are a number of contributing factors: my love of hiking and walking; the draw I have always felt to forests and mountains, no doubt inspired by my childhood summers in Vermont; and my ever-present need to commune with Nature whenever possible (difficult when one lives in the city!).  I am also drawn to a concept that I have encountered repeatedly in both literature and film documentaries exploring the subject, that thru-hiking the AT is in a sense the closest thing we have to a truly American spiritual pilgrimage (though I would argue this could just as easily apply to many of the other beautiful long trails scattered around the country).

All these thoughts and more come to mind when I contemplate this hike, which ideally I would like to attempt sometime within the next five years.  It is very hard for me to articulate to other people in the course of a general conversation.  So, imagine my astonishment upon opening a volume of the early poetry of Robert Frost, which I haven't looked into in probably a decade, and finding on the very first page this sonnet which so concisely encapsulates the feelings I have such difficulty expressing.

Into My Own

One of my wishes is that those dark trees, 

So old and firm they scarcely show the breeze,

Were not, as 'twere, the merest mask of gloom,

But stretched away unto the edge of doom.

I should not be withheld but that some day

Into their vastness I should steal away, 

Fearless of ever finding open land, 

Or highway where the slow wheel pours the sand.

I do not see why I should e'er turn back,

Or those should not set forth upon my track

To overtake me, who should miss me here

And long to know if still I held them dear.

They would not find me changed from him they knew--

Only more sure of all I thought was true.

~ Robert Frost