A funny thing about time and events...

 I've got a bit more narrative to write over the last part of the trail. I've got thousands of photos to sort and edit, lots of video footage too. This task is a bit overwhelming! Part of that problem is that since moving from a mac to a linux laptop, I lost a good workflow I had with ON1 Photo Raw to edit pictures, and the DaVinci video platform. I've tried Darktable and Raw Therapee for pictures, but don't like them very much. My next step is to try the (commercial) Corel AfterShot Pro, then to see if I can get ON1 to work with WINE, or maybe (ugh) a virtual machine.

Anyway, editing the photos needs to be fun, because I suspect that's at least 2 solid days of work.

Another thing coming to mind now, brought up by remembering the frozen lake crossing, is that I wasn't prepared for the mental challenge of a very long trail. Everything I've done before has been short enough that the initial wave of enthusiasm was enough to carry me. I didn't know that this flame needs to be guarded, and even re-lit in creative ways. One interesting thing is that I walked all the country about which I'd spent much time imagining. I wondered about the mysterious towns of Pagosa Springs, or Salida. I thought about the "Knife Edge," and different high points. Those moments spent in the imagination planted seeds that I myself had to harvest -- and I did so with pleasure.

But about parts of the trail further north, I hadn't thought nearly as much. This meant there were no seeds to harvest up there. And when I was tired and the flame of enthusiasm was out, there was nothing to draw me there.

So that's something interesting.

And it raises a larger point, that I enjoy thinking about.

We think the future is ahead of us, and the past behind. But the seeds of the future were planted, and how long ago? Often very long.

I had a moment one evening, walking a canyon rim in New Mexico, listening to Mike Oldfields Omadawn. I'd first heard this music as a kid on a camping trip in the aspens of New Mexico, Cloudcroft, with my dad. The similarity of my evening view with the one the kid had 44 years ago was striking, like a scent to which enormous memory is attached.

I felt that I was here now, because of the impressions made so long ago. And these impressions were far behind more recent ideas that led me to the trail. I saw a network of connected lines threading past to present. When you finish something and say, "I've done it," you are communicating with a prior you who made the promise. This message from the present to the past then changes the future, because a loop has been closed, and that prior you marches forward from his point of pause...and he will confidently make new contracts.

The future is a fertile field in which you're already planted. In fact, all of time is a beating muscle in your heart, where oaths made in love or honor are the vessels through which you flow.

Do not worry about the future!

It is a country known to you.

So...I know this is strange stuff, and I know I'm trying your patience with all my philosophy when I should be more concrete about reporting my experience! In my defense, this stuff is my experience, lol...!