Twelve Weeks To Go

This is what the bridge shown in my masthead above looks like when heading downstream on the Pine Creek Rail to Trail. When I was a kid and we would drive up The Creek for some reason or another this bridge (and one closer to town) always intrigued me. There was alsways something about them that made me want to get out in the middle of the bridge and just look up and down The Creek.

I was always too much of a wimpy, scaredy-cat to walk out on the rails that were there then. I know others probably did. I don't think many people ever jumped off the bridges- the water level is not all that deep and a permanent spinal cord injury was sure to follow. But I never did that myself. I would just look longingly.

Actually, in those years me and wilderness would not have been two things that easily came together. It wasn't necessarily because I liked the comfort of a nice bed with a roof over my head. It was fear. Fear of bears and animals in general. Fear of snakes, especially the dreaded rattlesnakes that were - and are - prevelant in the area. One of the white missionaries from the 1700s even commented on that in one of his reports in his diary. In some ways I am surprised Tiadaghton (the Indian name for the creek) didn't mean Rattlesnake Waters.

The other thing was that when you grow up in a place like the Pine Creek/Susquehanna Valley you don't know what you have. The mountains, the waters, the trees are all psrt of the expected scenery. It is only when you leave that you realize what you had. Which is what has happened to me over the years. I think it also made me more open and aware of the need for wilderness of some kind in my life.

I use the word wilderness quite broadly to actually mean nature in general. Nature and "tame" wilderness can be found in parks in the middle of cities as well as in one's backyard where a stream comes up out of the ground. It can be in the trees and life from a park that your backyard abuts to. Such contact with the "nature" world was so in-bred into me as I was growing up that I didn't even notice it.

But then I found myself looking for the parks and quiet places. I became aware of being a "river rat" who looked for water to connect with. I began to sense those "Thin Places" as the Celts called them where the separation between heaven and earth was for some reason "thinner" than others. As I looked backward then I realized that Pine Creek and the Susquehanna River were two important places in making me who I am and turning my spirituality into reality for me.

So in August we will be back there. Twelve weeks from today is my 60th birthday and I will complete the last few miles of the 60 Miles for 60 Years bike trip. We plan on staying in the valley near the Creek for the whole week, though, and just letting the wildnerness surround and carry us.

I hope to post something each week on the journey and its roots. It is all part of the Rolling Toward (and Through) Sixty for me. I will try my best to bring you along.