- Albert Camus, The Fall
Yesterday I woke up and it was all over and everyone was gone.
I had spent all of calendar 2005 to date either frantically planning, or actually executing, my next new great thing – hiking across the entire width of England. Months of reading, and planning, and buying gear, and scouring maps, and reading guidebooks, and online coordinating . . . were followed by Mark hitting town, then Darby hitting town, then the frantic tour guide routine, then packing, then getting to the train to St. Bees on the Irish Sea, then the great adventure, two weeks and 191.5 miles, fells and dales and moors and tarns and fields and rocks and sheep and rain, going too fast to really parse, too much of it to record, too intense to consider in real time . . . then back to London, another couple of days of hectic London devouring, Big Day Out with my mates, another couple of pubs and a restaurant . . . then Sunday morning came and it was all over and everyone was gone.
I am having very strange feelings. I am lonely. (Typically, after being on top of other people for weeks on end, I'd be dying for time alone. Am I changing?) I am at a loose end. I am – substantially, though not fatally – sad. I am listening to Death Cab for Cutie, each song by whom, and all of them in aggregate, seem to recapitulate my emotional state perfectly. I am calling my loved ones to stay grounded. My best friend went into detox, realising that the drinking had gotten the better of him. Good for him. I love him. I am cooking food, where I always find comfort. I lost nearly ten pounds on the trip (hiking up mountains with a 30lb pack for 6 hours a day will do that to you). I need to re-tool. I need something. I generally need something. I failed to call my grandfather for Memorial Day. I find I miss her.
