Our Souls Need the Rain

It is Friday night at the Trail Days festival in Damascus, VA. It has been raining for hours. The group I have been hiking with for hundreds of miles is nearly fully assembled and encamped near the edge of the baseball fields in the tent city.

Laura, the Finnish hiker called Evening Snack by the trail, is going home tomorrow morning. Everything else, the mileage, my own aches and pains, the minutiae of trail logistics, and the festivities feels remote compared to this.

Laura has a rare talent for care. I have trusted her more than anyone else to care for the needs of our trail family. She returns to Helsinki to resume her forestry work.

For weeks Laura and I hiked together. We started early, often the first to leave camp. We weren't always the first to arrive at our next destination, because, in my words, "we've got aaaall day."

By now we are all in our tents sleeping off a long day followed by our first all out party night on the trail. The festival continues around us. At around sunset the tent city transformed; we as current year thru hikers feel like a minority among the reunioners and party goers. A few rows over, the same Neil Young song has been playing on a loop for about an hour and a half now, and he still hasn't found that heart of gold.

We took to our wet tents in somber moods. In the morning I will perform the trail song and tell the story of our trail family.

Like the evergreen forests of both The Smokies and Finland, our souls need the rain to grow towards the sky.