The stumblers

I trip or roll on almost every hike I go on. I’ve learned that I am not a creature of grace. But that’s okay. I have scrapes, scratches, and scars on my body almost constantly, carrying all those roly-poly memories for me.

I feel like life is the sum of a hike. Wet, hot, cold, dry, dirty, stumbly-clumsy; so joyful, so rewarding, so dazzling. I love the messiness of a hike. The twists and turns of a climb. The views all the way up, all the way down. No matter how many times I do a hike I’ve decided I refuse to ‘get used to’ the views.

I’m sitting in a Dunkin’ at Walmart, waiting for my endless prescriptions to be filled. A fly has decided I am now it’s best friend. Could I be more white trash? The thing I love about moments like this is the potential for negativity countered by laughter. It’s too absurd not to laugh about it. To make stupid, only-mads-thinks-is-funny jokes. Really that helps me cope so much. If I couldn’t find janky, human-filled, dirty corner ‘coffee shops’ in big supermarket franchises, then honestly what am I doing?

Maybe stumbling through life is the perfect way to do it. A place where no one is an expert. Gliding suddenly sounds so dreary, so empty. I’ve stumbled into so many people at so many different walks of life, seen kindness revealed where I didn't want it to show up. It melts my heart. Stumbling tears holes in my skin and rips up my toes but to see a glimpse of a kind human soul, I’d never choose to glide. The ones that remove their backpacks only to put them back on again. The ones who snack by water and laugh at bugs. The ones who see others. That is a challenged, slowed life, but the most rewarding.