It’s funny how life work sometimes when you’re minding your own business. Last month I was approached by the managing editor of Southern Tier Life Magazine, Catherine White, about doing a series of articles on poetry for National Poetry Month. She found me through a post about the open mic at Card Carrying Books and Gifts on April 28th in which I am the MC.
So here I am, writing articles for a local magazine. When I was in high school I wanted to be a journalist. My life path didn’t carry me down that road and I went on to be a nurse instead, but have always carried that dream in my back pocket. I get to place a big old check mark next to this line item on my bucket list this month.
The first article is about how poetry has weaved itself into my life. You can read “A Life of Poetry” now at Southern Tier Life Magazine. Thanks for taking the time.
Read. Write. Support the small press. Be kind to each other.
When I write a new poem I always share it with my boyfriend first. Then I send it around on messenger to a few souls who are online. It’s random. I like random sampling for feedback. These poems only ever have a quick once over for glaring spelling errors and to maybe adjust a line break and then I let them fly before tucking them in a folder to marinate awhile.
“The Moment Before the World Wakes Up” was one of these poems. I sent it to Chris Bodor from AC Poets. Often, I don’t get any responses from people. I might get an acknowledgement they saw it or a few kind words, but this time Chris thought my poem would be great for a project he knew of elsewhere. It was unexpected, but I love the idea of new directions though I struggle with the transitional area of change. He added me to a group and shared my poem with a musical group called brotherwell.
The project itself is called re:covery. He takes our poems about recovery and makes music behind them, with them, all around them. He adds his own lyrics and together, we have written a song that I feel is full of truth and vulnerability. brotherwell really captured the feeling beneath my words and I was certainly touched by his lyrics and the thoughtful way he created music to merge them both. At some point in time, the collection of all of these collaborations will be available to buy or stream with the proceeds going to a recovery charity. Stay tuned for that information down the road. But for now, you can enjoy my collaboration with brotherwell: The Moment Before the World Wakes Up.
Read. Write. Be kind to each other. Support the small press and its writers.
Welcome to my 100th post! It has been a great two years in publishing for me and I do believe this is my last acceptance of the year 2021 (though I do have a few more things out). Thank you to Piker Press for taking a series of my poems and posting them through the fall and winter. It has been my pleasure. You can find my poem, Restless, and other fine works in their latest issue.
you took a trip in your mind, broke free from all the chains that bound you for a lifetime, but somewhere in the middle the reality of chaos took you by surprise. everything and nothing was real. life became something you grasped as if it was ending. When you finally called me, i was the last to know. i was here with yarn and hook, cats piled on my legs like liquid warmth. part of me felt a little broken, my own reality coming to whisper in my ear. for over an hour, you spoke of patterns and vessels made for the universe, how we are projections of the cosmos living out some edict we don’t understand and maybe never will. i let my mind drift into this longer world, let my own fear and inhibitions sink into the couch. i had been building an atlas of the universe we shared without giving you a chance to lay down the asphalt of new byways, without thinking you’d want to forge new trails with me. the weight of it pinned me to the earth and we said good night. i thought of all my own broken maps, this invisible world painted across my living room, and wondered where our roads would finally bring us together.
This week I have the pleasure of having my poem “Witch’s Teeth” up at Piker Press.
The kind folks at M 58 Poetry also saw fit to publish three of my darlings: “Rene Magritte, Empire of Lights, 1949,” “This is My Waterloo,” and “The Arsonist.”
Thank you for taking the time to read my work. Be sure to stumble around both Piker Press and M 58 Poetry for other great work. Discover something new. Be kind. Support small press.
My poems “His Eyes Raised to Heaven,” “The Trouble with Demons,” and “Maddog 20/20” have found a home at Rusty Truck. Please stop by and have a look as well as sift through the archives. There are some hard hitting poems found here by really great writers. Thank you Scot Young for taking these pieces.
Support Small Press Poetry. Be Kind. Write every day.
I awoke around 5:15 a.m. to a hard wind in the trees and the smell of rain. Since I was first up, I had to get the rest of the group moving. The weather report had called for rain by 9:00 a.m., and we didn’t want to end our trip hiking out in a storm. We prepared our packs with a rain fly just in case and left our raincoats out. All of us ate oatmeal and chugged some coffee. The night before we had gathered plenty of water to make it the final six miles out. We left the camp before the man and his son were awake so we didn’t get to say goodbye. I was able to pee again before we left and I felt I had turned the corner on a critical situation.
Photo by Monica Larkin
The initial part of the trail was a steep decline and then a reciprocating incline before it flattened out into something more gentle. It was a blessing because my legs were so tired and the rest of the group was definitely feeling the previous day’s trek. But with each incline my hamstrings and glutes revolted, and slowed me down, so I put myself at the back of the pack. I kept catching a lot of roots on that trail and stumbled a few times. I was worried about falling and paid closer attention to where I was stepping. When we emerged from the forest, it opened up to a dirt road that would serve as our last mile or two of the hike. I love a good home stretch and savored every step of this walk to the finish line. The pavement was like a re-entry to society. We were stepping back into life as we know it. Back to jobs and bills and soft beds. Part of me was ready for this, but part of me had a hunger for more.
Photo by Aleathia Drehmer
We all hopped into Chelsea’s car that we’d left at the end of the trail. Sitting on something soft felt like a luxury that I had taken for granted in my life. It was a short drive to drop off Mo at her car where we made plans to meet up for breakfast on the way out of town. The drive to pick up Lisa’s car moved us through the valley of the two ascents we had climbed. Lisa pointed up to an open swath of land and told me that was where we’d eaten lunch the day before.
I started to cry thinking about what this human body could do. I’m crying now because the hike was challenging, but I had no idea exactly how high I had climbed. That moment changed the perspective on what I had achieved personally. Then Lisa turned and pointed to the other side of the road and showed me the second hill we climbed, the one that almost killed me. Though I realized at the end of the hike how unprepared I was physically, mentally, and emotionally for this trip, I greatly appreciated what my body did and what it could do again.
After we picked up Lisa’s car, we ordered breakfast to go from Caruso’s in Naples. We all smelled terrible so we ate our breakfast on the ledge of the library windows next door. I had a cinnamon raisin bagel with maple walnut cream cheese and real thick cut bacon. I could’ve cried over how delicious this tasted and how much I needed that moment of joy in my life. Less than five minutes later, the thunder and lightning started. We made it back to our cars just before the deluge. It was a blinding rainstorm and we could barely see the road. In every sense of the word, I felt thankful for my life. Every decision we made on that trail got us out of there before the rain.
Photo by Aleathia Drehmer
What I Learned
I learned hubris has no place on the trail. Before I left, I’d thought this hike would be no big deal. I was never more wrong in my whole life. I needed to be more mindful about how my body would handle this kind of exertion. It could have cost me my life.
I learned that sometimes it is okay to trust strangers. Despite the fact that I was the most inexperienced hiker on the trip, none of the women ever made me feel less than. They stopped to help me and taught me many lessons about hiking along the way. Even the strangers we met at the last camp were gracious, and gave us extra food and packed out our trash.
I learned that this body has a limit of about 9 miles with a 20+ pound pack (mine was 30-32 lbs if I’m honest). Not following the guidelines that Lisa gave me to only pack 20 lbs was a mistake that could have seriously injured me. Again, a point of hubris for me. I’m an avid disc golf player and my disc bag weighs at least 25 lbs. I had imagined that another 5 lbs wasn’t going to slow me down, but the difference was distance and elevation.
I learned I am one of those people that benefits from a higher carb to protein ratio for snacks and food if I am going to have enough energy. I’d packed mostly proteins and fats, which did not help when I had rhabdo on the second day. My body was carb and salt starved in the worst way. In all things, balance. I had not remembered that.
I learned that sober living is what I want to do. I’d chosen sober living after a series of drunken boyfriends in which I took on their environment of drinking. It stripped away everything about me I loved—my creativity, my drive, my energy, and writing. I’ve had one drink in the last two years and I regret nothing about staying sober. #LaCroix4ever
I learned I am stronger than I think I am on so many levels.
I learned I can be my authentic self and people still like me.
I learned that community and teamwork are everything.
I learned how isolated I’d become over the years, building up distrust for those around me because I was afraid of being hurt again.
I learned there is a lot of healing still left to do.
I learned I can call upon my ancestors for help and they’ll listen when I need it most.
This was a life changing journey that I am still feeling the effects of. My muscles were weak for over a week and I still have been tiring easily. I’m listening to my body for a change instead of the voice inside my head that tells me to push everything to the limit, even when the outcome will be bad. There were so many valuable lessons on this three-day trip. Still, so much to unpack mentally, but I’m here for it.
Thank you to Lisa, Chelsea, and Mo who supported me on this journey. My life was better with you in it. Thank you all for reading this incredibly long series of blogs. I hope you get out there and hike. The fresh air will do you good. Stay safe.
I was the first one up in the morning, as I am always awake by 5:30 in the morning. I witnessed a beautiful sunrise and wrote in my trip journal. I did my best to center myself each day to prepare for the challenges ahead and to build my morale. My body was sore, but I felt eager for day two. I woke everyone else up so we could stay on schedule and, as a group, we decided we had enough water to start the trip. This section of the trail crossed water several times, and we would be able to refill as needed.
Photo by Chelsea Kehrli
We hiked in a mile or so and found an excellent water source, which was also a lovely, meditative spot. While we worked together to fill water (#teamwork), Chelsea read a passage about self love and caring for yourself as an example for those around you. It was something for us to contemplate on our journey until the next stop. We each spoke aloud our thoughts on the reading and what we wanted to think about before we packed up and started walking again. This part of the trail was very enjoyable and not too taxing. It spit us out onto a road, and we had to walk uphill and then downhill on pavement for a good portion. We took in nature and played guessing games to pass the time.
About a mile before we were to ascend again, we stopped for a snack in the shade as it had been warmer on the road. The valley was lush and green. It gave me a deeper appreciation for the place I live. We are blessed with so much wilderness. There was another short decline down the road and the last thing we saw before starting up the abandoned logging road was a cute half blind horse. She made us all smile. We would need it for the steep incline that would go on for three and a half miles.
Photo by Monica LarkinPhoto by Chelsea Kehrli
This climb was challenging for me and several times I was disappointed in myself for how poorly my body felt and how quickly my mind went along for the ride. There was a deep regret for some of the pack choices I made. A mile and a half before we crested the hill, we came upon an abundant patch of wild raspberry and blackberry bushes. We foraged them like children and stuffed ourselves with the fruit’s sweetness as if it were candy. It was enough to get me to the top.
Photo by Monica Larkin
We had a flat walk through the woods a bit farther until it opened up into a massive field of wildflowers and sunshine. There was a cut in the trees that displayed the expansive vista of the valley and the hills on the other side. We ate lunch here with our boots and socks off letting the breeze cool our feet. We laughed at the hill we had just climbed and I marveled at how quickly the body and mind forget such pain once it’s gone. Lisa read another passage after lunch. This time we learned about local tribes of Seneca and how they believe we have to set examples for the seven generations that come after us as did the seven generations before us.
This was a powerful notion considering the current political and world climate we live in. We thought about leading the youth today through our own positive actions and choices. The view and the idea of how we are all connected would be my favorite highlight of the entire trip. As we packed up our gear and prepared to descend the hill we had just worked so hard to climb, I shared my chocolate covered espresso beans with the group (charity, again).
Photo by Aleathia Drehmer
A mile or so in, the descent down the hill was a bit thwarted. Lisa had purchased a map for this section the night before and checked the website for any trail changes, but when we got down into the woods rather far, we saw that all the orange trail markers had been blacked over. We were at a loss of what to do because going back up and out was not an option if we were to make shelter in time before nightfall. We followed a logging road downward until we realized that this would not lead us where we needed to be. It was a bit nerve wracking as it was trespassing so we went back uphill to where the trail should have been and bushwhacked our way out of the property until we found the road.
Later we would discover that this easement had been taken away around March. This was not readily noted without having to scroll several pages on the website. We walked a short distance on a dirt road until we found the orange markers that would get us back into the woods and on the trail.
Photo by Aleathia Drehmer
On the large downhill section off the hill, we stopped to rest just before the end of B1. Chelsea had set her pack down in the logging road and then sat down to relax. About ten minutes later, she noticed the tiniest tick on her arm. When she started looking, they were everywhere on her body. The rest of us checked ourselves to make sure we hadn’t walked through a nest, but we had no ticks on us that we could see. It was determined that she had probably set her bag down in a seed tick nest. We were there twenty minutes while she and her girlfriend picked ticks off of her and they lost count after thirty. It was definitely a morale dumper at that point as the threat of Lyme’s Disease is very heavy in New York, and its long-term implications can be life changing.
It was then that I realized I hadn’t voided since we left camp around 7:30 am and it was 2:00 pm. Everyone else had stopped on the trail several times to void. Being a nurse, this concerned me. I’d been drinking a lot of fluid, but it was warm, and I was in pants and a very thin long sleeve shirt (to battle both ticks and sun exposure). The overexertion of the first hill mixed with heat exhaustion made everything in my body hurt. I chalked this up to being overweight and not acclimated to this type of hiking.
With this concern, I thought I should at least try to see if I could make urine. It was scant and coke-colored and I knew I was either in the throes of severe dehydration and on my way to rhabdomyolysis. This is a potentially dangerous health condition that I knew could ruin my kidneys and at its worst, cause death. I worked hard on consuming more water and carbohydrate gels to see if this would help. It seemed to ease the ache in my muscles for a short time. We were traveling downhill in the shade, so this helped.
Photo by Monica Larkin
We dumped off the trail into a flat meadow and the view was amazing. The path continued along the roadside for a short while and then we dipped into another field. As we entered this part of the route, I was a little crestfallen. This was the final leg of the trail until we reached camp for the night, but it was all uphill and I already felt terrible. The entire ascent, I was behind the pack just trying to will myself the energy to make it, but the more I climbed, the worse I felt. About a mile from camp, I had to stop and remove my pack. The dizziness, nausea, and all over body pain was crippling. My breathing was shallow and fast. My Garmin had my heart rate at a steady 160. I stood there, knowing I was on the edge of shock. The cure awaited me in camp but I had to get there first.
Photo by Chelsea Kehrli
Chelsea, who was also struggling, had fallen behind and Lisa was by her side. Mo and I moved up the trail a little to wait. We stood there a good while before Mo, walked back down the trail to see if she could do anything. I had taken my pack off again to try and get cooler, to see if I could drop my heart rate down to something more respectable. When it stayed steady at 130, I put my pack back on and began to walk very slowly and meditatively up the hill. I needed to lie down, and doing this on a trail butted up against a ravine didn’t seem like the safest bet.
I started to lose focus on reality. The shuffle of my boots against stones. The eerie stillness of the forest. The way my own heartbeat sounded like a metronome. The metallic strike of my trek pole on hard earth. In all of this, I talked to my father who had passed away years ago. I asked for his strength. I looked for something that connected us. The entire last mile tears rolled down my cheeks. I was emotional and exhausted. I had underestimated how hard this trip would be and overestimated, with hubris, how it wouldn’t be that tough for me.
A hundred feet from camp, Mo caught up with me, and as we approached, we noticed there were already people at this lean to. I almost started sobbing because they had put their tent inside the structure, and I needed to be able to lie down more than anything in the world. I wasn’t sure what we would do. Mo had a different perspective. She was happy to see others on the trail and had no problem engaging in conversation. The lingering effects of this pandemic and constant isolation had really ingrained itself in my social skills.
Photo by Monica Larkin
After talking to the man and his son for a while, and playing with their dog, Sky, we learned he was an experienced hiker there with his son and his father. Three generations of hikers together. He removed his tent from the shelter without us having to ask and cleared the camp table so we could make dinner. The older gentleman wasn’t staying for the night, though remarked he thought we were such a nice group that he wished he’d brought a blanket so he could stay. The son and grandson hiked him back to his car, which gave us a chance to change clothes, eat, and set up. I wasn’t hungry but forced myself to eat oatmeal. We still had to hike down the trail to refill water before I could lie down, and I pulled every ounce of strength in my body to do this. Our water supply was nearly dry by the time we entered camp and refilling was vital.
Photo by Aleathia Drehmer
By the time the man and his son returned, we were settled with our places to sleep. I’d already been lying down for some time trying to rest and hydrate. Their dog Sky, a chocolate lab, came up on the platform and snuggled in with me. It was all I could do to keep from crying. She was a comfort when I was feeling defeated, physically and mentally. Sky was a sweet and well behaved trail dog. I’m not sure my morale would have risen without her there to calm me. I hurt everywhere, and in my mind knew that I was physically in a dangerous place with no way to fix it in camp other than the purified stream water I was drinking.
Part of me knew my pride had me in the situation I was in. I could have gotten off the trail as we crossed the main road before the second ascent. I’m sure if I would have told Lisa how bad I was actually feeling, she may have insisted I call for someone to pick me up. But I wanted to finish. I needed to finish. I watched as my new friends built a campfire. I fell asleep to the sound of everyone talking and the crackling of wood. Even the hard surface didn’t bother me as I drifted off hoping for a better tomorrow.
Around midnight, I woke to the sound of a coyote howl in camp. It was so loud that I thought it was right in my ear. I’d slept with my head toward the open sky because of the extensive amount of spiders dangling from the boards at the other end. Waking up with one in my mouth was not on my to do list. The cry made me sit up quickly, causing dizziness and a pain that coursed through my legs. I couldn’t even stand up to move back to safety, and I knew I couldn’t reach the knife in my pack. The darkness and my weakness made me vulnerable. I pushed myself back deeper into the lean-to with my arms and then held still. I heard the coyote moving around the camp and then a rustle from the man’s tent. It gave another howl, and then it ran in front of the lean-to. I was in pure survival mode between the dehydration and this threat of bodily harm.
Of course, this is when my body decided to fill my bladder to the brink. I’d been waiting all day and this was the most inopportune time. For safety reasons and because I don’t see well in the dark, I sat in the lean-to for almost an hour before I ventured out to pee with my trek pole in tow as a weapon. I did go a good amount. Though I couldn’t tell the color, it satisfied me that my kidneys were on the road to recovering.
I slept on edge much of the night due to being alone inside the shelter. The pain from hiking and the severe dehydration made me ache all over, and the anxiety from the possibility of the coyote making another pass through camp had me skeptical that I would be able to get any rest. I slept despite all of this, mostly from pure exhaustion, and I even had strange dreams.
How could someone just wander through the mountains alone for all those miles?
When my father came home from Vietnam, he hiked the entire Appalachian Trail trying to ease his way back into civilian society. He was riddled with conflict over what he had done and how he was treated when he returned. His journey intrigued me for my whole life. I wondered what it would be like to take to the woods with my life on my back. Would I have the strength to do what my father did? Had I grown too soft in my advancing years?
A nurse I worked with years ago invited me to do a section of the AT and I prepared for months with research on gear and foods. I had a notebook full of choices, but what I didn’t have was practical experience. I have hiked before, but never something that extreme and the fear of what I didn’t know, kept me from going on that journey when it was offered. Months ago, my friend Lisa asked me if I wanted to go on a three days/two-night hike. I’d never done this before, but always had the desire to know what it was like.
I had wanted to discuss my father’s time on the trail for many years, but distance and awkwardness kept me from finding the right time to hear about his hiking days. Several months before he passed away, we had decided that I’d buy him a tape recorder and he could tell the stories verbally since the arthritis in his hands had made it difficult to write. I lost my father shortly after that decision and lost the chance to know about his hiking adventures or be able to share my own. My hope was that our shared love of the woods would bring us closer together.
We were very much alike in character–stubborn, hard-working, solitary to fault, but still community minded. Loyalty and truth were everything to us both. When he passed away in 2015, I lost a part of myself. He made his journey into the woods in his twenties, bereft and disillusioned. Now, I’d be making my own journey to the forest in my late forties searching for my own meaning.
Better late than never.
My friend Lisa, several months back, had invited me to join a section hike of the Finger Lakes Trail with a group from ROCovery Fitness. My opportunity to test my strength and will were hand delivered. I had a lot of fears going into this hike which would be three days and two nights, as I had never backpacked overnight. With everything that had happened in my life, cue in a long line of high kicking traumas, it was safe to say I had trust issues when thinking about hiking with strangers. This trip would make me vulnerable to strangers and this is not my strong suit. But being stubborn has its advantages. Failure was not an option so I told Lisa yes.
A document was sent several weeks before the hike with all the information I would need to prepare. It included the people that were interested in going and the thought of hiking with eleven people gave me panic and at one point, I had thought of backing out. In the end, only four women, including myself, showed up for the journey. The group of women I hiked with were varied in personality, which made the trip interesting. Each of them was in different stages of hiking ability. All of us were sober living folks so this and hiking gave us common ground.
I had always been in awe of Lisa. I met her in a writer’s group several years ago and her writing was raw and full of her life’s traumas in such a connective and powerful way. Slowly over the years we became friends. She is tall and thin but is more strong than any woman I’ve met in both physical power and determination. But don’t imagine she is a hard ass just because she’s strong, because what she brought with her was a love of life, nature, and her extra goofy personality. Lisa was our hike leader and the only person I knew, the only one I thought I could possibly trust.
Photo by Chelsea Kehrli
In addition to myself, there was Chelsea, Lisa’s girlfriend, and Mo. As it would turn out, Chelsea and I were the least experienced hikers of the group and had similar quiet personalities. We often traveled in tandem near the back of the pack as we listened to Lisa and Mo talk about any number of things ahead of us. Mo joined us after we had completed the first day. She hiked in by herself and very quickly before nightfall. Mo has the best morale of anyone I’ve met as she was always happy to be exactly where she was on the trail. Even when the hike was miserable, she was smiling and enjoying life.
Prior to meeting these women, I had a fear of failing in front of them. The thought of others watching as my body disappointed me made me slightly crazy. I worried about slowing them down and holding them back from their own good experience. Most of all, I had to trust that this group would keep each other safe, keep me safe. This expanse of fear caused me to place a lot of pressure on myself. In the back of my mind, I knew I would love the hike and get along with these women, but after living a life where traumas sort of piled themselves up like cordwood, it was hard to see the light in this situation.
For this trip, I spent a fair amount of money on good, solid gear following the list of suggestions from Lisa’s list as well as various hiking websites. I bought quality things as an encouragement to keep hiking, even if this sort of hiking didn’t turn out to be my favorite. This journey would be my maiden voyage for hiking with full gear for anything longer than a day. I was bound to make mistakes, but I was eager to see what I could do better. Before the trip, I packed and repacked my gear several times to try and offload some weight and make everything fit without shifting. We were advised not to carry more than twenty pounds but no matter how hard I tried. I couldn’t get mine under thirty-two pounds. I thought I would be okay. In the end, it wasn’t and there were so many things I learned weren’t needed that could’ve lightened my load.
For fun, right before I left to meet the women for our trip, I drew three tarot cards to see what I needed to learn about this hiking adventure. There on the table were some deep and challenging lessons I hoped to achieve: gentle strength, charity, and teamwork. These would all become relevant in this journey, more than I could ever imagine.
Day One: Access 5 on NY-245, B1
Photo by Aleathia Drehmer
Lisa, Chelsea, and myself arrived at access 5, a jumping on point in the middle of the Bristol Hills Trail of the Finger Lakes Trail. We parked in the DEC lot, and made our way around the side to start the trail which was wide and flat. This went on for a while and then suddenly we were back to the DEC building only on the other side. We had taken a wrong turn already and this did nothing for my nerves. Upstate New York has been riddled with rain this summer and as we walked back the direction we had come from, we realized that with all this extra rain, the weeds had grown over the opening to the trail. I’m 5’5” and these weeds were up to my neck. After leaving some sort of marker for Mo who would be joining us late, we bushwhacked into the trail head to find the orange trail markers we were looking for. Once in the woods, the climbing was nice. The universe blessed us with pleasant temperatures and no rain and this was a welcomed change.
I used this part to get acclimated to my pack and my body underneath the heaviness of my gear. The solidness of everything I had packed was heavier than I imagined it would be on a steady slow climb as I tried to avoid roots and rocks. It was challenging for me to find a comfortable pace since I am usually a fast walker in general. I would need stamina if I were going to make it through alive. Very early in the hike, Chelsea was complaining of back pain as she was recovering from a recent back injury and had hiked in the Adirondacks the week before. We hadn’t even hit the 9% incline yet that was going to last over a mile. Chelsea had not brought trek poles and this was my first time using two of them. I’m a one pole sort of person, so I let her borrow the other one to help her back. I knew the upcoming hill would be challenging but I also knew that I’d feel accomplished when I had finished it. This would be my first act of charity on the trip and it was a nice way to start the hike.
Photo by Aleathia DrehmerPhoto by Chelsea Kehrli
Along the way, we took in a myriad of beautiful flowers and the day was full of butterflies of all kinds. The ground was littered with American giant millipedes everywhere we looked. We spent a lot of time trying to avoid trampling nature when it was possible. Along this part of the hike Lisa named her backpack Stella and I named mine Sancho as a tribute to Don Quixote’s trusty companion, and also because I felt like a pack mule.
We made our way through a high grass strip of field nestled between swaths of forest until we came to a lean-to area. It was nice to offload the pack and stretch while looking out over the amazing view of Canandaigua Lake. The first day’s hike was over and all that was left to do was set up camp and find water. Despite my earlier mention of tons of rain in New York, it took us a while to find running water in which to filter to refill our water bladders and bottles. This trek led us down a steep embankment. It was a beautiful view from the creek bed and I found a rock shaped like a boomerang. The hike back up the hill wasn’t my favorite part of the night but at least I wasn’t carrying old Sancho.
Photo by Chelsea KehrliPhoto by Aleathia Drehmer
The three of us made dinner and watched the sunset while anxiously awaiting Mo’s arrival. It was getting dark and I kept my eye on the path that she was supposed to arrive from. She is a super fast hiker and did make it to camp before dark. We enjoyed the rest of the sunset and a fire. The temperatures were pretty cool for summer, down to 48 degrees, but I was toasty in my mummy bag and layers. All through the night, we heard coyotes in the distance that sounded like they were heading away from us. Before the trip, my best friend’s son gave me a talisman to ward off coyotes and strangely, I felt safe with it in my backpack.
Thanks for reading. Stay tuned for parts two and three.
I am happy to announce that my poem “The Language of Flowers” is up for viewing at Fixator Press.
Thank you so much to editor Jonathan Butcher for taking this piece. Be sure and tool around once you get to the website and read all the other great poetry there.
Thanks for reading. Be kind and support the small press.
Aleathia Drehmer 