fly

*Cobblers Path, where the fearless can walk almost down to the end of that point.*

I was back on the East Coast Trail this week, and it was bliss.

The East Coast Trail, a 300 km hike on the Avalon Peninsula in Newfoundland is absolutely stunning. Broken into 25 shorter paths (and managed entirely by volunteers), it takes hikers along the coasts and into the woods of the Avalon peninsula. The views are indescribable (I’ve dotted a few into this post) and the feel of the wind winding itself around your body? Nothing can beat it.

I have my favourite bits of trail, of course; everyone does. But while others might work their way through the whole trail, my favourite bits are shaped by my self-imposed limitations: I won’t walk along a cliff edge (that puts parts of Father Troy’s Trail out of reach) and I’m not into major scrambles up and down without the support of others who can act as ‘trees’ (that leaves out parts of other trails). My other limitation is entirely practical: I need a toilet of some sort (don’t even ask me to try and use a Shewee because that would be … a disaster. Trust me on this).

Given these limitations, there are many, many bits of the trail that fall outside of my criteria, many bits of trails I’ve never even tried to traverse.

*A absolutely stunning cathedral iceberg grounded near Cape Spear. This view from the Blackhead to Cape Spear part of the East Coast Trail.*

And it’s not at all that I am physically unable to. What it comes down to are two things: trust and confidence. I don’t trust that my feet won’t just give way at a critical juncture, and I don’t have confidence that my body will carry me safely over the terrain I encounter.

I worry about tripping. About my foot catching in a crevice. About losing my balance. About twisting my ankle. About tumbling. Not just to the ground in front of me, but right over the edge of a cliff face.

My lack of trust is based on experience: I was never an athletic kid, and am not always the most coordinated (see: Shewee, above). And from a camping trip to Englishman River Falls on Vancouver Island, way back in 1989, I know exactly how it feels to trip, catch my foot on a tree root, lose my balance, twist my ankle (badly!), and tumble right down a steep hill.

Thirty five years is a long time, but I still very much prefer to have my feet firmly on the ground. I mean, tumbling down a hill is one thing; possibly falling off a cliff face into the ocean is something entirely different.

And so, my time along these trails that I love is mixed. I am both exhilarated and terrified, absolutely at peace within myself and disassociating.

*Deadman's Bay. A very lumpy and bumpy and rocky wooded trail leads to a quiet oasis.*

I wrote about this experience in a micro-essay called “Stumble,” part of Autoethnography and Feminist Theory at the Water’s Edge: Unsettled Islands, a book I co-authored with two former students. There, I wrote:

Here, on the edge of the North Atlantic, the land and I meet. My footfall wears a path in the grass, joining the stories of all those who have walked these desire lines before me. I am tentative, my feet feeling for security. Around me on the East Coast Trail, others move faster, bodies and land worlding together, relationships between internal and external geographies well honed. Some even run, their steps secure, ponytails bounding. But I pause regularly. I say it’s to enjoy the view. And perhaps it is. But mostly it’s because I need to find my body, to locate my toes, to feel the earth and rock beneath my feet. I stumble. I can’t find my footing. Geography betrays me. The land, it seems, resists. (135)

As I read this again today, six years after it was published, I wonder once more about this relationship between body and geography.

*Cape Spear to Maddox Cove. This trail has the absolute best views over the Atlantic. Big and bold and wide, wide open.*

What does it mean for body and geography to meet? For my inner geography to encounter an outer geography? That was the question at the heart of my micro-essay. But today, I’m turning inward… and upward.

Because I wonder if it’s not the encounter that is fraught, but rather, the inner mapping that is uncertain; or, perhaps, if it’s that the inner mapping doesn’t quite trust the outer mapping (and possibly, vice versa)? I wonder, as I walk, about my seeming need for security, my yearning for the solid ground of “The Rock” beneath my feet. I wonder about the way my heart races as soon as a stone shifts, even slightly. And from there, I wonder about fear, and about where it comes from and what purpose it is serving.

I wonder about trust and I wonder about confidence. About where they sit in my body, or where they don’t. About how I have come to understand these words, and if I can come to understand them differently.

I wonder about exhilaration and inner peace.

I wonder what might happen if my feet were to loose themselves from the ground to which they so desperately cling.

And then I wonder what it would feel like to fly.

migrations

float