My Anchor

This week's Weight Watchers goal was to find an anchor.  The anchor could be anything - a word, phrase, object, etc - that gives you the motivation to stick to the Plan (yes, they do capitalize the Plan).  The last time I lost weight was around the time Alias was on the air.  I watched it religiously, and I had a bit of a girl crush on Sydney, the main character.  I just thought she was the coolest thing since sliced bread, and I loved that when her life kept - repeatedly - getting knocked all to shit, she didn't wallow (like I would).  Instead, she fought back, both literally and figuratively.  (Seriously.  The girl kicked some major ass.)  On days when I was driving home and didn't feel like going to the gym, I'd think 'what would Sydney do?', and that would be enough to get me into the parking lot.  Or walking the tree trail at Ault Park and coming to the big stone steps in one of the hills, if I wanted to slow down or take a break b/c my legs were burning, I'd think 'what would Sydney do?' and instead of slowing down, I'd pick up the pace all the way to the top.  Fictional though she may have been, Sydney Bristow was my anchor, the person I wanted to be.  She's what kept me going.

I've tried the same trick this time around, but I've found that it's been too long since I was that into the show, and my WWSD mantra just doesn't provide the same oomph anymore.  But when we were sitting in our meeting last night and the leader was talking about anchors, I immediately knew what my new anchor was.

I no longer remember how, but a couple of years ago I stumbled across a blog written by a girl named Erin Saver.  She was from the midwest (as am I) and had moved to Portland (as I desperately desire to do), and at the time was thru hiking the Pacific Crest Trail.  I'd heard of the Appalachian Trail, but never the PCT.  Turns out the PCT, at 2,663 miles, is even longer than the AT (2,200 miles), and stretches from Mexico to Canada by way of California, Oregon and Washington.  And people hike it.  All in one go even, which apparently takes around 5 months.  I was fascinated.  Erin had a blog post for each and every day she was on the trail, and each post was full of her adventures that day, complete with pictures and often videos.  I found the blog a month or two into her hike, and I devoured the entirety of it in a couple of days.  I loved it.  The scenery was gorgeous, the stories entertaining, the people interesting.  Somewhere along the line I ended up trailing off (no pun intended), and I never made it to the end of her hike (a tragedy I am currently rectifying by going back through all of the posts again, starting from the beginning).  Reading about her experiences on the trail, being that immersed in and dependent upon nature, is so inspiring to me.  And the thought of how much discipline is involved in pushing yourself to walk 20-30 miles in a day when maybe you feel like crap and you've got blisters on your feet and there are bears and rattlesnakes and sketchy water sources...it amazes me.  It's the kind of person I want to be.  And every once in awhile, when I don't feel like doing this or that or I'm feeling lazy, I think of Erin and all the other thru hikers out there and what they go through, and I think about how they wouldn't sit around on the couch eating bon bons instead of washing the dishes (although I'm sure there are times they do), and I get up off my butt and I do whatever it is I didn't want to do.  My mantra is no longer What Would Sydney Do?  It's What Would Erin Do?

Because I'm a visual person, I decided I needed a visual reminder of my anchor.  Something tangible that would remind me every time I saw it of everything that my mantra means to me.  Now, when you're walking 20-30 miles a day carrying everything you need for your survival on your back, you don't pack extra outfits.  Consequently, in all of Erin's pictures she's wearing the same thing - chartreuse and navy.  Since I've seen so many pictures on Erin's blog, these two colors have come to symbolize Erin and thru hiking for me, so when I decided I needed a visual reminder of my anchor, something I would see and have with me all the time, two thoughts immediately occurred - chartreuse, and bracelet.  So off I went to one of my all time favorite stores, REI (not that I really do much outdoorsy stuff yet, but I can still spend hours and hours on their website comparing this tent to that one, this pack to that one - preparing for the day when I'm in shape enough to do it all, I suppose), to buy a paracord bracelet.  I'm not entirely sure what I was thinking when I decided upon chartreuse paracord for everyday wear - for those of you unfamiliar with paracord, something about it seems to intensify colors, so the dark colors are rather dark, the dull ones very dull indeed, and the bright colors are very...nauseatingly...bright.  So navy it was!  And now every time I see my wrist will be a little nudge to stay on track, to be disciplined, to be the kind of person who would leave everything behind to spend 5 months walking across the entire country with nothing but 20-something pounds of gear and their wits.

Erin's blog is called Walking With Wired (Wired is her trail name).  She's currently walking the Continental Divide Trail, another Mexico to Canada trail, and at 3,100 miles, it's the longest (and apparently most dangerous) of the three major trails - the PCT, CDT, and AT - which together make up the Triple Crown of Hiking.  (Incidentally, I grew up in Kentucky.  As much as I've been reading Erin's blog, I still can't hear Triple Crown without thinking of the Derby.)  This is her second of the three.  Go read her blog.  Now.  You'll thank me.  (Or, more appropriately, her.)