From the nails of the feet to the Plaza del Tiempo: fear, friendship and find balance

Lois: You think everything and all are beautiful …

Clark: Maybe that’s the real punk rock.

– Superman (2025)

THE RETURN OF THE FOOT NAIL 🦶

I should have been somewhere in New Jersey, rhythm, sweat and sweat in general, when I felt an old and familiar pain. I took off my shoe and muttered, «Oh no …», indeed, a new incarnate nail was being formed.

Cue The Drama: That cold grip of fear wrapping his frozen hand around my heart. (Yes, I’m being theatrical, but I swear he felt real). Would this take me out of the way? again?

At the beginning of my walk, I had to take three weeks of rest for an infected nail. The idea of reviving all that terrible experience (doctor visits, healing, waiting while my family of trails walked) was scary.

Fortunately, I caught it early. But it was a marked reminder of how fragile this trip is really. No one is guaranteed to get to Katahdin. And I have immense respect and compassion for hikers who have had to get out of the way for reasons outside their control. I could still happen to me.

Maybe that’s the real punk rock

New Jersey and Mew York brought their own challenges: paranoia of injuries, endless rocks and worst of allThe errors. There was a particular day when he felt as if every mosquito throughout the state had joined to ruin us.

We were entering Warwick when the error apocalypse reached its maximum point. Then, right on the signal, the path was provided. Shimmy and I took a walk in the city just before a huge storm and we encountered a sidria for a very necessary relief. Later that night, sweet tea brought together us, and we camped in a entrance cinemawhere we saw the new Superman.

That film hit at the right time. There is a scene in which Lois challenges Superman for always seeing the best in people. Your answer?

«Maybe that’s the real punk rock.»

That line stayed with me. Because here outside, that is what the path teaches us: believe in people again. From strangers that give us walks to the angels that present us in their homes, there is a quiet (and strong) kindness that appears everywhere. And maybe, in a world that often feels cynical, that A kind of hope is rebellious in its own right.

The impulse in the theater 👏

Talking about kindness …

When we crossed New York, I received a call from my friend Tom:

Tomás: «You’re close to Suffern, right?»

Me: «Uh … Maybe?»

Tomás: «Great. My mother lives there. She is picking you.»

Indeed, Linda (Tom’s mother) pounced as an angel on the path and shower us and washed his clothes, after 10 full days without 🤢, and then left us at the train station so that we could go to New York. An absolute legend 👏.

Pumbaa, sweet and beautiful tea (the true hero)

Restart of the concrete jungle 🌆

Clementine is a wonderful hiker that I met from the beginning. He was here ending sections that he lost during his walk last year due to Helene’s damage, and she simply live in New York.

So we went from forest and paths to subway and skyscrapers.

The cervical whip does not begin to describe it.

We did the successes: New York Pizza, cheap meatballs in Chinatown, Times Square, a Hot Dog Street classic. However, we were not there to eat, we were chasing novelty. At this point on the walk, the mystery has begun to fade. We know how the life of the path is seen. Mental routine becomes more demanding than physics.

NYC was exactly what we needed. Stressful, yes, but a change of welcome rhythm. And Clementine, thanks for opening your space. You helped us rest.

Me and Sweet Tea in the Lego store, keep the inner child alive 😝

A tucan eccentric appears 🦜

Few things are more rewarding than having people from their life «out of trail» can witness it during the «trail» part.

This is how he felt reconnected with Tanner (also known as Tucan eccentric). It is the second friend of my life of Utah that I have seen here, and catch up in New York was surreal and moving. An absolutely wonderful human with a huge heart is one of the people who heard me talk about this walk to yearsSo make you see that it really develops? Enormous.

A fantastic human 🦜👏

«Wherever you go …»

«Wherever you go, there you are.»

It is one of those deceptively simple phrases that has a blow, especially here.

At the beginning of the path, it seemed that everything was new. The environment. Town. The challenges. In those first weeks, it was easy to believe that he had left certain things: courtyards, insecurities, habits. He felt like a clean board.

But slowly, as the novelty disappeared, I noticed that those family pieces of myself appeared again.

I am much more sweaty in this photo of what I look

As a therapist, I talk to customers all the time about how external change (new work, the new place, the new relationship) does not automatically bring an internal change. If you are not actively working with the underlying things, it will only appear again in different packages. And yes, that is also happening here.

I realize my prostration resurgence: except now that it is not about paperwork or programming, it is about stretching, daily, communicating when I need help or even write these blog posts. I also see that the comparison is introduced: «Am I making enough miles? Should it be faster? More strong?»

These patterns have not disappeared just because I changed a desk for a path. But the path gives me something different: space to notice.

The Superman line, «Maybe that is the real punk rock,» has stayed with me. Here, the «Punk Rock» movement is not walking as many miles or having the lighter package; It is choosing, again and again, believing in the best parts of people and in my own ability to continue, even when my old fears appear.

When you are walking only for hours, there is no distraction, it is not easy. Your thoughts appear and you have the spiral option or Sit with them. And surprisingly, sitting with them does not feel so scary here. There is something about the rhythm of walking, the constancy of the forest, which makes the internal talk a little easier to observe instead of absorbing.

Slingshot chose many berries 🍓

In the world of therapy, we talk about «response flexibility»: the ability to stop between stimulus and response. I think that is something that the road is helping me to build. I am learning to reduce the speed enough to notice the thought («You are not doing enough»), sit with it, challenge it and then choose how I want to act, not react.

I’m also noticing the important Self -pity It is on this trip. There is no perfect through Hiker. There is no correct way to do this. And the idea that I would somehow become a completely different person simply walking towards the forest? That was never realistic.

So yes, wherever you go, in trace or outside, there you are. But maybe that is not a limitation. Maybe it’s an invitation. To be more curious. More compassionate. To understand each other a little more deeply with each step.

Sweet tea

Approaching the end

The word «k» –Idiot«It starts to emerge more often.»

Some days, I feel ready to do. Other days, the idea of ending saddens me. This has been a dream, and I am afraid to let it go.

But I’m not there yet. At this time, I am somewhere in Massachusetts, with Vermont on the horizon, still incredibly grateful to be walking north.

Pumbaa outside 🐗