Tonight is my last physical class at Southern New Hampshire University for the foreseeable future. This does not mean I won’t be back, or won’t be taking classes, its just at this moment I am on a short term leave from school (some people call it summer [sic]) and now have an opportunity to take care of some personal matter before continuing on with the school thing. Before anyone congratulates me on a year well attended, I am not happy about this. My not being in classes is not sitting well with me and has caused me to reconsider some elements of what I am doing and where I plan to go. More on that later.

With that said, let’s move on.

Yesterday, that would be Monday, I went for a walk. This is not uncommon for me, nor is being gone from between two and four hours at any given jaunt. Yesterday was closer to two and a half hours, but that’s another tale for another time. Somewhere in that jaunt I was attacked by a wicked little creature known as the ‘dog tick’. This was not something, at the time, I was aware. There are no physically discomforting signs that this rather large blood sucking omnivore (I don’t know that ticks are omnivores and believe that they are more parasitic, but parasite didn’t fit into what I was trying to accomplish there) dropped out of a tree or crawled onto exposed flesh while brushing up against a tree or underbrush, thereby allow it to get onto my body and bite down. Ticks suck blood. They do so, on their victims, for about forty eight hours and then drop off. There was no tick on me before the walk and afterward I went to stores or stayed in my room. I’ve never had a problem with ticks in my room before.

Logic suggests that it happened while I was on a forested portion of the journey. Therefore, the tick attacked me while I was in the woods. The woods are a dangerous place. I can’t wait to go back to the woods because they are dangerous.

Didja get all that.

That’s not exactly where I am going with this. Where I am going is along the lines of the tick and where it got me. When I woke up this morning after an odd three hours of sleep last night (really couldn’t/wouldn’t go to sleep) I stumbled into the bathroom, took off my clothes (which means that I was completely, stark, and utterly naked) and checked out my body. I don’t know about most people, but I have a rather interesting interest in my own body and various body parts (shame on you for that thought) and like to see what is happening with the ole body in the mornings before taking a shower.

This morning as I was scanning the rather white skin that I sport I noticed a rather dark spot that looked a lot like a blood smear from a cut or a blood blister or a scab. Combine all three, in your head, and you might get close to what it looked like. It being the thing that was just under my left scapula (that would be shoulder blade for you leftist neophytes). When I went to flick it, or pick at it as is my wont when I don’t know what something is, I could tell, almost immediately, that it wasn’t a normal scab/blood blister/wound, whatever. So I took a pair of tweezers to it and then noticed the markings on the VERY dark center. (I would then cross reference these markings to a picture database off of the CDC.gov website to determine what kind of a beast it was that had gotten me. Hence the dog tick.)

What ended up happening is that I spent about five or ten minutes trying to get that thing off of me. This is not to say that the thing was massively big. It wasn’t. But it was bigger than most ticks I’ve ever dealt with and I’ve owned dogs and had to remove them, on occasion, from the animals. On top of that it didn’t want to let go. Stupid thing was stuck fast to that section of skin, there isn’t any, or much, fat there and so it wasn’t like I could just relax, and in the end I went looking for my Zippo brand lighter, lighter fluid and a needle to burn the thing out of me. That only resulted in slightly better results (and I ended up using a Bic brand lighter which didn’t sit too well with me either) until I took those tweezers and ripped the stupid arse-wipe right out of where it had attached itself.

One of the reasons I’d even noticed it was attached to me, other than I do this weird check thing, was because I could feel that portion of my body as being somewhat tender. Now, I don’t know how many people read this blog, or for that matter how many people have had some form of medical condition where new hurts mean something is not right, but the outcome was that this dime sized area of skin had become wickedly tender because of a stupid dog tick and I wanted to know what kind of trouble I was in.

As I didn’t really sleep last night, actually got up with my alarm, and had plenty of time to mess around with a dog tick, shower, and then get online before going to work [sic] I went and Googled the search “tick” and “bruise”. You’d be surprised to how few responses you get (that mean nothing) when you do a search on that through WebMD. However, through Google I quickly found myself at the CDC (Center for Disease Control) website where I was informed that the Northeastern part of the United States accounts for most of the outbreaks of Lyme Disease and that the disease was named for Lyme, Vermont (I believe) where some doctor finally realized what was going on with children showing signs of arthritis.

Lyme disease, just so you know, has a five to ten day gestation period during which time the body will not show any signs of having been infected. Lyme disease is not normally transmitted via dog tick, but rather through the far more prevalent deer tick which, at this time of year, is almost invisible to the human eye. The tick is in, out, wham bam, thank you ma’am, and you could be infected.

According to the CDC website (http://www.cdc.gov/) in 2003 more than 23,000 people were diagnosed with Lyme disease. If diagnosed early there are no problems. If allowed to fester, well, there are problems. However, that didn’t answer my questions regarding the bruise around where the tick had been so I kept searching. Knowing that I live in one of the worst areas for Lyme disease doesn’t sit well with me. You might be able to relate. Lyme disease is a bacterial infection and can be treated.

Anyway, according to further research, into other areas (websites fail me though part of this was on the CDC page for ticks) any other sign earlier than five to ten days is merely a reaction to the tick bite itself. So, what happened is I got bit, I had a reaction. Now I have a dime sized bruise looking blood thing on my back and it’s sore. What this means is that the tick and I didn’t agree on more levels than merely my irrational use of heat and metal to remove it from my back. For whatever reason, we disagreed on a far deeper level and my body was screaming at me to take care of the wee-beastie.

Now you know more about Lyme disease than anyone should ever know and on top of that I am once again hinting that there is change afoot. What is the change? Well, I have a good idea and have discussed this (since yesterday) with a handful of people, but at this time I am not ready to announce it to the world. So, hold you hats (“When a german scientist says, “Hold your hat,” you hold your hat. “HOLD YOUR HAT!”) and in a couple of weeks I would imagine I will be ready to announce what’s going on. Until later. Laters.

I read, late last night, an article about a guy who wanted to hike the Pacific Coast Trail (PCT) from Mexico to Canada and back again and had tried several different times; each time failing because of weather conditions. The article incorporated elements of the hikers life, someone he’d met on that very trail and become close friends with, and the breath and scope of their relationship – as well as the relationships he’d had throughout his life with his mother, his friends mother, and other people in varying walks of life. At 32 this guy was still trying to decide what he wanted out of life and whether or not working seasonal jobs was enough to sustain where he wanted to end up.

Maybe it was the lateness of the hour or the fact that I was a little over-exhausted from a too long day listening to little girls scream and disagree and run about before going to work and listening to big people disagree and run about, but not scream because you can’t do that in a public place, to really feel anything but some semblance of connection with this guy.

There are differences. For example, I’ve never hiked any part of the PCT and don’t know that I plan to ever do that. My work history has been more stable than his, but still, a lot of the jobs I’ve worked were recognizably short term. Nor have I had a ‘best friend’ who committed suicide because he couldn’t handle life or the swing of emotions that mental illness brings. Truth told, I don’t know that I’ve ever really had a best friend in this life. There are people I consider friends, I live with a couple of them now, but no one that I would drop everything for, would plan with, would grab my… well, in this case notebook computer, but in his, sewing machine, and decide to leave civilization for seven months to try the unattempted (yo-yo trips on the PCT).

My life doesn’t revolve around experiences of sensory overload – but I do relate to them.

You see, lately I’ve had to deal with some personal issues that are not mine, but are still a part of the life I’ve chosen to lead. Fidelity didn’t hire me and I wasn’t that upset because school is important (to me) and I need to finish that to accomplish other goals in life. Getting on with Fidelity would’ve required me to drop out of school for a while and that’s not really a good thing. There are domestic issues that I am not personally prepared to handle. In part because they don’t directly affect me, but because I am an adult and have some adult-like responsibilities, I still get dragged into the discussions and problems. That’s a part of living within a community and a part of a family (even if that family isn’t blood).

On top of that I realize that my life has to change, that it is going to change, and I’ve consciously decided to give up on helping those changes to happen (outside of actively going to school). I am, in essence, just floating because I don’t make enough money to do what I want to be doing on a weekly/daily basis. At once I feel writing is important (to the solution) and at another the kind of writing I’ve qualified myself for – and continue to qualify myself for – isn’t… I don’t know anymore. The objectives in moving to the East Coast were to find myself, to succeed and survive or fail gloriously, and to do it while living in a part of the country I’ve never lived in before – hardly ever visited.

The reason that I felt some form of kinship to the article, last night, is because I am dealing with physical problems, issues with work (that may have caused the physical problems) and to do that I am hiking and walking for hours every day that I can… and to a pretty great distance on the days that I really should climb onto the trainer and go directly to work.

What I’ve discovered is a feeling of solace and peace as I put my feet to the pavement and walk for hours on end – adding mile after to mile to a pair of hiking boots that need to go the way of the wildebeest, and discovering new and far more interesting areas to see and explore. Heading into nature (easier here than in Utah, amazingly) is one of those things that is forcing me to rediscover life and what I want to be accomplishing from it. I am seeing what I’ve professed to enjoy with new eyes and under new circumstances. Just yesterday I remembered there was a road (dirt) that extended from just below the road I live on through a forest and into another part of Pembroke. I walked it. It took 46 minutes up the road and just over twenty to head back down it. Tomorrow I hope it’s clear enough to walk back up that dirt track (cart path quality) and then back around in a massive circuit. I wanted to do that the other night and didn’t because there were time constraints to my doing things like that (like dark coming on and the weather taking a cold snap).

My goal, for a couple of weeks now, has been to spend the extra money on gas and drive into the White Mountains, ye olde Presidential Range, and hike up to a cliffs edge and try to relive the fancy and frivolity of younger years where Justin and I could pack up our stuff and go to the Grand Canyon because he wanted to see it and visit our uncle Patrick. We hiked down the Bright Angel Trail and stood on the edge of a ½ mile high cliff. It was spectacular and started me down a far different path than I thought possible, real.

I know there are cliffs in those mountains, I’ve seen pictures, and I want to find them. I want to hike them, sit on the edge, and contemplate a lot more than just that hypothetical egg I talk about. There’s peace in the wilderness and I believe there is more to scriptural references of God leading his people into the desert (wilderness) than just to get them out of harms way. He is leading them into an introspective place (as a people) where they learn to either serve God or serve someone else.

Deciding to serve God isn’t really the decision here. There’s far more to it than that. Being physically fit is important, hiking is important, spending time alone for personal introspection is important (to me) and I can do that (sort of) in the neighborhood where I hike seven or ten or more miles in a day, and I can do it in the wilderness where God is in the plants and animals and where I can spend time alone with just my legs as support, carrying me forward, and with my thoughts as my companion.

I want a companion. I would love to have someone I can share nature (and the neighborhood) with, but that hasn’t been a part of this adventure, yet. Maybe it will never be a part of the adventure. All I know is that along with quitting and handing this job search over to God and providence, I’ve also found solace in the wilderness. There is joy in nature.