Collapsing Tent Poles

The morning started off great at the Forest Service campground. After a day of easy hiking, with another easy hike ahead, Cindy slept soundly and peacefully throughout the night. A dog from the neighboring campsite came visiting, which perked Cindy up further. She looked more than ready to embrace the day.

Neither hiking nor sleeping have presented problems for Cindy on this journey, unlike what sometimes occurs in between. Mainly, I’ve come to understand the problem of down time for Cindy; specifically, down time when Charissa and I are getting things done like making or breaking camp and Cindy is just sitting around.

Even when I’ve hiked long distances with a group, such as the four and five of us that hiked the PCT together a few decades ago, thru-hiking remains a fiercely independent, autonomous pursuit. Maybe you eat together, one cooks and one cleans, maybe you put up the tent together, but for the most part you take care of everything you need for that lifestyle on your own.

I thought the simplicity of this lifestyle would be good for Cindy’s affliction; that may yet still prove to be true. Yet she still needs to do some things around camp to feel useful, to feel whole. With that in mind I gave her the assignment of collapsing the tent poles. The poles remain attached by a length of string; the task involves separating sections at the joints and folding them in together.

As soon as I asked her to do the task she eagerly replied: “I can do that!” … Except that she couldn’t. I broke down a few sections with her, placing my right hand over her left hand on one section, my left hand over her right on the other, pulling the sections apart. I left to fold the tent but she still could not continue the task. I came back and we completed the whole task of collapsing the tent poles together. I did it as tenderly as possible, hoping there might be some positive vibe in the process.

There is irony here in that this same tent provided evidence that Cindy was improving during our 5,000 mile walk across the country. She started out not able to help me with the tent then as well; by the end of the hike she could put up the tent by herself. Back then she would get frustrated; this time there was something deeper than frustration. As I gently used her hands to pull apart the last sections, she broke into tears over what she was no longer able to do.

I hugged her with my face turned away to prevent her from seeing that I also had tears. From that position I could see Charissa getting ready … and wiping her eyes.

At times like this you wonder why you would continue with this. The answers some from Cindy. We are always meeting other hikers and tell them something about what we are doing. To one group I gave the report on how exercise is the only thing shown to actually regenerate brain tissue. Cindy chimed in cheerfully: “Yep! That’s why I’m out here! …. Well, and I love hiking.” Then with another group I mentioned we were hoping to get Cindy the Triple Crown. She might have picked up on my hesitancy because she quickly added: “I’m going to do it. I’m going to get the Triple Crown!”

There you have it. At times Cindy is more positive about this than I am. There’s nothing else to do but continue the pursuit. In the meantime I will collapse tent poles together with Cindy until perhaps there will be a time when she collapses them on her own.