Submitted by Nancy
Stats
Mountain: Burton Peak (2,012), Holt Peak (2,084) and Temple Mountain (2,045)
Date: January 14, 2025
Weather: Sunny, windy, temps in the 20s
Miles: 5
Elevation Gain: 922
Pat and I set two goals today – to walk the length of the Wapack Trail, in sections, and to redline all the trails in the Belknaps. The Wapack Trail is more or less in my neck of the woods and the Belknaps are on Pat’s turf, so we can trade off who does the 2.5 hour drive there and 2.5 back. Plus – both goals have patches tantalizing us to finish earning yet another embroidered emblem.
As we walked on the Wapack Trail to Burton and Holt Peaks, a beautiful stone wall ushering us almost the full length of the trail, we talked about longing. I brought it up. For years, I have had this deep sense of longing, a kind of emptiness that sits inside of me. It’s almost always there. I try desperately to fill it. I stuff myself with comfort food usually involving cheese, desserts, or m&m’s. I drink red wine or rum swizzles in hopes that the alcohol fills the empty cavern within, and if not maybe it will make me forget that it is there. I look for books, movies or music to penetrate the void. I usually know within the first chapter of the book if it will do the trick, which is extremely rare. Most books leave me feeling vacant, with no relief. I’ve realized that I am looking outside myself for relief when I probably should be looking within.
I asked Pat if she has that same sense of longing, and she said that she does, and that she associates it with the depression that frequently leaves her world gray or in the worst of times, dark.
I don’t know if everyone has this sense of longing within…it’s hard to bring it up when you are talking about the weather, or your Christmas plans, or new aches and pains.
I asked Pat what makes her longing go away. She said hiking. The same is true for me. There is something about being out in nature, no matter whether it is the cold of winter or the heat of summer, surrounded by the truth of the environment that makes the wanting go away and brings me into the present…the trees, acorns, trails, the sky, the snow, and the birch trees. When I am able to see the beauty of the world around me, I am reminded that I have that same beauty inside me. Add the endorphins from pushing my 70-year-old body uphill alongside my friend and I am right where I need to be. Hiking is a light that burns away the fog of longing and brings me into myself. I am grateful for Pat and for my hiking friends in Keene who are a salve to the emptiness.
There are a few books that did the trick… Ty Gagne’s books about stranded hikers in the White Mountains and the Search and Rescue community in NH who try to save them. Kevin Fedarko’s Emerald Mile and A Walk in the Park. These books suffuse my soul with descriptions of the very places I love most, the White Mountains and the Grand Canyon. And, most meaningfully, they are all stories of people rising above their circumstances and doing something that inspires me to find that same courage or daring or strength in myself.
My family has a Christmas tradition that fills me to overflowing. We buy a basket filled with goodies. And then we go out as a family and look at the lights. We all come to a consensus about which house has the most dazzling light display and then we ring their doorbell and give them the basket, compete with a poem that explains our light contest tradition. When I see the wonder on the winners faces…I am filled with a joy that bathes my emptiness with light. Last year, after we presented the basket, through the window we could see the family giving each other high fives. It doesn’t get any better than that!
Seeing Grace, my golden retriever, frolicking in the woods, or giggling with my granddaughters, seeing my 4-month old granddaughter smile at me with her whole body, laughing with my husband…all vanquish the longing.
You know, when I focus on the longing I forget that there are moments, even hours and days, when the longing fades and the warmth of what I am immersed in makes my heart sing. So perhaps the trick is to focus on what alleviates the deep empty pit within. Or maybe I need to be grateful for the longing because it shows me the moments when I am filled to the brim with feeling…be it love or amazement, sadness or joy. It is when I really feel, when I open my heart and let in what is around me, that I am transported out of the longing and into life itself.