Days 24-26: Slow Hand Steady

WILLIAMSPORT, MD —

April 17-19, 2024

Days 24-26:

Over the last three days, my legs have covered some 55 miles. Although spring has awakened all around me, I find my mind framing much of my day to day as a long, long distance race against the Rocky Mountain winter, and her elements do not lack a strong tempo once the summer goes to sleep. I must arrive at a friend’s horse ranch in Gunnison, Colorado (where I’ll be a ranch hand for room and board until things warm up again) before November to position myself for success. However, I’m trying to stay present amid that ticking wintry clock in the exceedingly distant background.

On the evening of April 17, as I passed Harper’s Ferry, a historical town where abolitionist John Brown led a raid against the institution of slavery in 1859, I caught in the corner of my eye a towering figure gaining in stride right behind me—a man built like an oak with a face weathered like bark.

“Looking for a campsite?” he asked, his facial tattoo staring into me like a third eye. “There’s one .6 miles from here.”

He was heading north along the Appalachian Trail, which intersected the ADT at this particular juncture, yet he was currently held up in Harper’s Ferry waiting for a better-fitting backpack he ordered to arrive. In the meantime, he wandered this portion of the C&O, staying at various campsites to pass the time.

I asked him his name.

“Slow Hand,” he said. “What’s your trail name?”

I didn’t have one. In fact, I didn’t even know what a trail name was until he explained it: a hiker moniker, more often assigned than self-proclaimed, for those who might prefer to remain anonymous on the road for various reasons.

I can certainly understand the need for anonymity, but it had been three weeks since my last AA meeting. Although far removed from the compulsion to drink, my emotional sobriety was “getting a little squirrely,” as they say.

When Slow Hand told me not to keep any weed or tobacco in my backpack because it attracts bears, I told him, “no worries, I’m sober.”

“Me, too,” he chortled. “What’s your sobriety date?”

“January 29, 2017,” I said.

“Right on. I got sober in ‘22.”

In AA, the only requirements for a meeting are that two or more people are present and that those in attendance have a desire to quit drinking, or to stay quit. After we set up our campsites, we had the understanding that we met the criteria.

This one-on-one, right-on-time trail meeting was exactly what I needed; it slowed my roll. However, in the spirit of anonymity, I cannot make known its contents.

“Who you see here, what you hear here, when you leave here, let it stay here. Here, here.”

Before I retired to my tent for the night, Slow Hand suggested I listen to a book by Thích Nhất Hạnh, a Vietnamese Thiền Buddhist monk, as I continued my walk.

“It’s called ‘Peace In Every Step,’” he said.

As I put my head to the pillow, the AA Responsibility Statement emerged in my thoughts. I found my mind framing this present moment as a race already won, despite my past, simply because I was still here.

“I am responsible, when anyone, anywhere, reaches out for help, I want the hand of AA always to be there, and for that I am responsible.”

Slow Hand. Winter can wait.