Virginia is the longest state on the Appalachian Trail at about 550 miles. It was beautiful, but by the time I reached the end I was ready for a new state. Here are a few thoughts from Maryland and Pennsylvania (I didn’t write anything in the eight miles of West Virginia). More reflections on Pennsylvania to come, because it was a long and grueling state.

26 June, Maryland

We took a lunch break at Dahlgren campground. It was over halfway and the day was young, so KG and I lay down head to head on a bench, read our respective books, and took a nap. In between reading my favorite author and sharing a bench with my friend who had returned from big miles and three days off in DC, I looked up at the sky. Two huge poplars flanked the campground and they were fluttering in the wind. Perfect fluffy white clouds rolled by, and I felt completely present. This is the trail I wanted. Today I feel here. My head is swimming with love for writing and the world and The Graveyard Book and Aziraphale and Crowley and running water and summer and snacks. I am happy. So, so happy.

Annapolis Rocks campground, 21:30

We’ve just finished watching the sunset. Patches, Krazy Glue, Hermione, Slouch, and Nemo and I all sat there together, listening to chill music and watching the sky glow purple and orange and pink. I have felt varying things about my tramily and the very nature of having a tramily out here. On the one hand it’s frustrating to deal with logistics and differences, but on the other hand, a trail family means you can share experiences. You can look at each other and then back to a view, and say “wow” or raise your eyebrows, and get a response. The shared view is a mass around which the rest of my experience outdoors orbits. Here we are, with our vastly different personalities and motivations, all together and enjoying one thing.

I decided to go back to camp and get to sleep before everyone else. I’m tired today, and I’m starting to get into the rhythm of having time to read and write, and I don’t want to fall off the wagon. As I was leaving the viewpoint at Annapolis Rocks, Nemo asked me, “Are you writing a book?” And for the first time, with confidence, I said, “Yes. Well, maybe more a collection of essays than a book, but that’s what I want to do.” It felt like a switch, like how, after a certain point, you stop saying “that’s the plan!” when someone asks if you’re going to Maine, and switch to a confident “yes.” I have marked my plan and said what I will do. That feels good.

I want to write more thoughts but I am very tired, despite the nap today. I am so ecstatic to be this far through the trail.

30 June, campsite past Pine Grove Furnace State Park, 20:15

Alone. The trees are whispering with the wind. Occasionally, a bird will chirp in the background, somewhere past the stand of bushes right by this fire ring. It is not silent, but it is quieter than shelters and quieter than being in a group. This forest, a young one by the size of the trees, feels like a blanket rustling over a mattress of earth. I am writing words on a page in English, but no English can be heard. As I let myself sink into this solitude I remember that the nature around me is older than language.

I am comfortable alone at first. At first I am rejoicing with relief. I set up my tent in a clearing where I see no other people. I eat a small dinner and write in my journal in complete unadulterated aloneness. I turn on an audiobook to pierce the silence, and turn it off, feeling that I am wasting my time to listen. Now I sit.

There is a road somewhere, maybe a few miles, to my left. This makes me nervous, but it would not make me nervous if I were not alone. I hear a sound that is probably a toad, but there is no water around here, so I start to imagine it as a boar, or a bear. A branch scuttles and I picture a black bear, Ursus americanus, waiting for sundown to accost my food bag. These are things I would not think of if I were not alone.

I do not think I am scared. If I am scared of anything out here, it is people. Especially after what happened earlier this year. And I am afraid of waking up and hearing a sound. I am afraid of a bear that is not afraid of me, a bear that I cannot chase away. Other than this, I am not afraid. This trail has nudged its way into the cords of my heart. I am home here, I am home and whole.

1 July, Green Mountain General Store, lunchtime

This is the kind of place I want to put in a story. It’s the kind of place that’s right at home in Pennsylvania, all comfy and familiar, with an edge of country shabbiness that is elevated by its kind people and clean bathrooms and brilliantly delicious subs. The paneled ceiling is slanted and uneven, with a few fluorescent lights. The air conditioning is running at full blast in the little room up a staircase, and I am sitting right in front of it. (Which, I just realized, might be making the rest of the place stink. Oops.) I’ve just finished eating the best cheesesteak I’ve ever had the pleasure to consume. It was fresh and warm and perfect. I’m working on a cup of coffee now, which is what originally brought me in here. I woke up late today and thought, I wonder how it would go if I didn’t make breakfast but just started walking. So I did, and I felt like a zombie. But both the first shelter, where I was originally thinking about stopping, and this deli were 0.2 off trail. So I thought, real coffee and flush toilets trump whatever I have in my pack. I have no self-control when it comes to food on trail, but this place was worth the short but terrifying stint of road walking. It’s full on summer in the north now, here in southeastern PA, and forty-five minutes not in the sun are a merciful relief.

This is the kind of place in a small town where people know each other. The two girls behind the counter speak to customers who come in with friendly familiarity. Everyone seems comfortable and alright. It’s the kind of store where you could buy anything, if you looked hard enough for it. 2-liters of Pepsi and Mountain Dew, jars of peanuts, packs of oreos, fishing gear, bait, hope, wonder, potions. Wood-paneled walls and menu boards of the type that require individual letters to be placed between plastic lines. Large chunks of plastic-wrapped cheese, a basket of onions. Banjos on the walls made of old cigar boxes. Maps, t-shirts, thermometers.

I guess I should keep walking. But this air does feel nice. And the coffee is so much better than instant. And I am so happy to have had twelve hours of miraculous, beautiful aloneness. I feel like I am finally hiking my own hike, setting my own schedule and following my own rules.

Last night I felt a little nervous, and it took me a while to go to sleep. I eventually did so with the help of a chill playlist. I didn’t set an alarm, and I woke up at 5:30, but didn’t start moving until 8. It was quiet and beautiful and so miraculously solitary. I want to do that again, but I think tonight I’ll be forced to go to the campground just before Boiling Springs, since there isn’t much after it. Maybe I’ll try a big day tomorrow. Or maybe not. It feels good to have no rules, and I’ll have to remember to allow myself to make my own choices out here.

21:46, Camp outside Boiling Springs, PA

I want to lie down. I want to watch Good Omens and fall asleep. But more than any of these things I want to remember the fireflies.

Walking back to the campground in the almost-darkness of twilight, KG and I watched in reverent silence to the spots of light dotting the fields and cornstalks. They make no noise, but they speak a language all their own in this special light. They are ethereal, walking the border between real and not. I stand staring at the lights, the uneven symphony. I am transfixed. I cannot pull myself away. I am reminded of times when the smallest movement of a stalk of grass on the Arizona Trail made me understand the significance of life, the worthiness of the world, why it would be worth averting the apocalypse for. These fireflies are a gift. This feeling will never come again, not exactly like this. They remind me that I am alive.