True North

Mile Marker 7525:

Pause.  Rewind.

Remember a time when you knew exactly where you were going?  Not this week.  I mean way back.  More than a week ago.  BEFORE this pandemic.

For me, that was Mile 7,525.  Last summer.

I took a road trip with my friend and climbing coach Michael.  We turned on Waze and headed north toward Boston for a climbing competition called The Crux.

Before the comp, we walked around Watertown, Massachusetts and wandered into a Greek festival just in time for lunch. Vendors lined the walls of the church.  At one table I found this ring, a thin band encircling a tiny silver compass.

Perfect fit.

Actually, that whole weekend was a perfect fit.  Driving by the Palisades Cliffs, climbing till late in the evening, hitting a diner at 11 PM, seeing old friends, and of course...

...hanging with the CRG Adaptive Team.

And the comp?

Couldn't have had more perfect results!

It just felt like I was on the right path.

Coming home, I decided that compass would always be a reminder.  I could simply look down at my ring and remember what it felt like to know where I was going.

I thought that direction would always be true north.

Mile Marker 8355:

Eight months later, COVID-19 blows in like a gust of swirling chaos.

Pandemic.  
Epicenter.  
Social Distance.

These words surround us, and although they hint at direction, they're blinding too.  There's no telling where they'll take us.

Doorknobs are dangerous.  Toilet paper is precious.  Stores are crowded.  Schools are closed.  Everything is cancelled.

How do we do this?  Which way do we turn?  What help will we need?

My own search for direction is nothing new.  (Remember Mile 262 or 315 or 1,414?)

But this is different.  Massive.  Life changing.

It's not just me struggling.  It's everyone.

At Mile 8,355, I find myself in an eye of the storm.

The day is breezy and the air feels unexpectedly clean.  For some reason, I'm drawn to Kelly Drive.

As I pass the boathouses, I realize how long it's been since I've walked here.

Before the accident, I skated and biked this path many times a week.

Remember Mile 0?

It's where I began this journey!

Now, 8,000 miles later, I start walking again.  And it works like a reset.

I inhale deeply, drawing in the spring blossoms and green grass.

The glimmer of afternoon light on the river.

The relief of a walkway -- a direction that's clearly marked and easy to follow.

Despite a whistling headwind, the chaos in the air settles.  Those frightening words sink to the bottom, and a more peaceful rhythm arises...

Nothing to do.
Nowhere to be.
Nothing to do.
Nowhere to be.

(When was the last time we could say that?)

I am wearing winter gloves, half for protection and half for warmth.  I pull them off and run my bare hand along the stone wall.

Maybe it's naive, but for the first time all week, I don't think about germs or how many people have touched this surface before me.  I can see the city skyline and hear traffic on the Schuylkill, but for some reason, the confusion seems far away.

It feels SAFER out here.

One mile in, the rim of my socket starts to poke as it often does on long walks.  I take a breather.  Hop up onto a corner of the stone wall.

I'm no good at sitting still, but I try to clear my mind anyway.  People pass, alone or in pairs.  Three black flies play tag on the muddy path.  Two mallard ducks float by on the waves of the river.

Sunlight filters through the quick moving clouds.

The sky reminds me of our drive home from Boston last summer.  "Clouds from all angles," Michael said back then, as we headed south on the New Jersey Turnpike.  The road was wide open.  We could see for miles that day.

Not anymore.

I look down at my hands, raw from soap and sanitizer.  That directionless feeling comes flooding back.

But there's my ring.

It makes me think of small, hopeful things that happened this week.  How someone held a door open for me with her sleeve.  How friends from far away texted me just to "check-in."  How I had a friendly conversation (from a safe distance) in the supermarket line.

That's changing fast, I know.  The new and unfamiliar rules are taking their toll on all of us.

I worry about my family and friends.  I worry about where we'll all be when this ends.

I worry that the people we turn to for direction -- the doctors and nurses and first responders -- may be overwhelmed, or unprepared, or worst of all, UNSAFE.  My heart goes out to them.  I wish I could do more.

If you see them...

... say THANK YOU.

I sit cross-legged for a while, feeling the stone against my prosthetic socket, looking out at the river and the sky.  Ideas trickle in like rain.  I pull a pen from my bag and scribble them down in words and phrases.  I don't have any paper.  I didn't expect to write here.  But writing centers me.

No worries.  It'll be washed off soon enough.

Where is true north? 

I can't seem to find it in this new reality.  I'm lost somewhere in the space between this too shall pass and this changes everything.

All I've found is this moment -- and mile -- where nature keeps going.

We're separate right now, but we're part of something bigger.  Wherever we're going, we're going there together.

Hang in there everyone.  And I will too.
Here's to healthier days ahead.
One step at a time.