Why does stopping feel wrong before it feels right?
I planned to keep moving. That was the default. Miles meant progress. Progress meant I was doing it correctly.
But I reached the East Verde River at sunset and didn’t feel like earning anything else that day.
I cowboy camped between two fallen logs, more as protection from the cows than the cold, and listened to the water move through the dark. By morning, I told myself I’d take a zero. Just one day.
It took longer than I expected to settle into it.
I rinsed my clothes and laid them out to dry. Sat there longer than necessary. Then laid down myself. Sun on skin. No reason to get up. No one watching. No miles to make.
Cheetos and cream cheese. A bad haircut with noisy clippers. Shaving with the river as a mirror that didn’t care how it turned out.
I kept catching the impulse to leave.
To do something. To justify the day.
It took hours for that voice to fade.
Somewhere in the quiet, a voice reminded me of the difference.
A human is an animal. It rests when it needs to. Moves when it wants to.
A person keeps score.
Black and yellow butterflies drifting above the water. The Two-tailed Swallowtail, the Arizona state butterfly. No urgency in them. No destination I could see.
By the time I stood up, the day had already done what it needed to.
The moon was nearly full, it was time to climb into the Mazatals.
#peeclearbeforeyouleavehere #nakedlaundryday #AZT #ArizonaTrail