The dust kicked up by the departing ferry not only settled but seemed to dissolve in the glowing heat of the New Mexico Bootheel. The group that came with me walked to the small canopy that surrounded the south terminal.
I walked a few steps to the end of the Continental Divide Trail and rested my hand on the stone obelisk. Although it was still morning, it was warm, a stark reminder that the “idea” of this hike was officially dead. Reality had barely begun.
The ongoing construction of “the great wall” casts a shadow over the first steps of a path destined to unite us. My mind wonders who “we” is referring to in this statement.
It is a strange and beautiful surprise to come here from Switzerland. My mind kept flashing back to a few weeks ago, when I was walking near Biberbrugg. We were walking through fresh snow, even though the sun was out and the air was a pleasant 15°C. That’s been our home for more than a decade: vertical, rocky, and predictable in its alpine stubbornness. The world here is flat to a point I have never experienced before. The landscape is a horizontal expanse of arid dust and rocks, hidden under a sky so vast it makes you feel like a fly on a lampshade. From the air it looks like a gigantic pancake with a few hills thrown in for good measure.
Limbo and the “No”
The trip to this place seemed longer than the 3,000 kilometers that lay ahead. For months, I existed in a strange limbo. I hadn’t left my job, I took six months of unpaid leave. But in many ways, the mental distancing was equally definitive. I spent months training, planning, and trying to focus on ongoing and newly started projects at work while my heart was already somewhere in the Gila Wilderness. I’m pretty sure by the end my colleagues were sick of me mentioning anything about this hike.
The moment it became “real” was not when I signed the paperwork. It was a random Thursday afternoon, two weeks before my departure. An email appeared, a request for a new project that would have continued well into the summer. My fingers hovered over the keyboard and didn’t react like they normally would. Normally, I would find a way to take advantage of it, to take care of it, after all, my client relationships are important to me and I don’t want to let them down. Instead, I emailed a colleague: «I won’t be able to deal with this. I just won’t have time to deal with it anymore.»«
Hitting “send” was like cutting something. Although my job would be waiting for me in half a year, that email was my true departure. I was no longer managing projects, I became a person who left.
The nylon explosion
That stress-free preparation period you had hoped for and planned for? It was a total lie. Over the past few days, my room in Switzerland looked like an equipment store had been in a head-on collision with a Uhaul truck. The floor disappeared under “The Piles” between boxes to clean part of my apartment. I became a judge in a high-stakes contest and decided which items were worthy of the 3,000-mile runway.
There were the essentials, the backups and the maybes. Then there was the Reject Graveyard pile of «just in case» items that I quickly realized were just physical manifestations of my own uncertainty about what to expect out there.
The Tupelo Food Lab
Before setting out, I spent a week in Mississippi, which felt like an exploratory mission to another planet. For me, the American grocery store experience is a fever dream. I learned all about messaging, high fructose corn syrup, the difference between bacon and bacon-like substance, and why «real» is apparently a necessary sales pitch.
I spent hours wandering the aisles of Walmart, Kroger, and Aldi, staring at snack boxes and neon-colored bars like they were alien artifacts. My kind host’s kitchen became a laboratory. I spent days in a cycle of trial and error soaking and cooking ramen, Knorr sides, and different types of oats on the counter to see if I could handle the texture and trying every powdered nut butter and jerky strips I could find. Some were instant victories; Others were never again mistakes that I’m incredibly happy I made in a kitchen with a trash can nearby instead of in the middle of the desert. When I reached the border, I felt confident that what I had discovered would get me through the first stretches.
The magnitude of “nowhere”
But today, when I arrived at the terminal, all that preparation seemed insignificant to me. When you look at the CDT on a map, it’s a red line that looks manageable. As he stood in front of the monument, he suddenly became a weight. The knowledge that the next reliable source of water is a distant uncertainty, and the noise of the ferry’s engine has been replaced by an eerie cacophony of unknown sounds. I don’t think I’ve ever been in a place so remote and inhospitable to human life.
The magnitude of the project finally settled on my chest. There is no one here to ask directions except a faint message in the distance.
Taking the wheel
This is a real change for met. Accept my role in the driver’s seat. In my “normal” life, decisions are often shared, dictated by a calendar, or smoothed by the infrastructure and system that society provides. Along the way, that Delegation has left.
Every decision now carries a direct consequence. If I don’t control my hydration, I crash. If I don’t set up my tent correctly against the desert wind, I don’t sleep. If I don’t take care of a hot spot on my heel, I don’t walk without pain. There is no more relegation of responsibility. I’ll take care of it or it won’t happen.
It’s a barely familiar but not unpleasant level of agency. As I adjusted my backpack and took the first step north toward the sand, it was also the most excited I’ve felt in years.
One step at a time. Here we go.
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