4/28- An Irritation

Waking up on that beach dune was a continuation of my little moment of heaven. I rose a little after the sun still feeling really good and in tune with life. Todd, however, did not.

I had a bit of time to myself, as he slept through, and was still so relaxingly giddy that I broke out the camera again and took some pictures of our camp and the beach. Todd woke up long enough to pee and point out where the Pocketmail was then crashed right back down again on top of the bivy. I took that time to pack up my things then recline against Ole Blue for another hour and write up some posts. I was still feeling grand and riding that calm wave of life.

Todd woke for the day around the time I finished writing and it seemed apparent right off that something was askew. He started asking me about how we were going to get out of town that day. This was followed up with a need for cigarettes and coffee, a craving that was definitely irritating him to be having. We started getting into how long we'd be in New York. Would we be in the city most of the time or at my Mom's? Worried about how much money would be siphoned out of our minimalist budgets visiting friends in a city like NYC. Just a bunch of planning questions that took me way off guard from my "in the moment" mentality that I'd thought he was sharing still. For a brief moment I was even thinking he was irritated with me for wanting to see friends in the city.

That did begin to get at me for a minute until I realized it. As soon as that hit me, that I was on the verge of becoming defensive, I was able to pull back a second and suddenly see quite clearly that he was just in general agitated. I still couldn't figure out why, but returning to my zen state of the past few days I was able to remain neutral and let him ride out what he needed to. It was a further boost for me to feel that return as I saw Todd struggling through.

A sort of calm returned to the morning as we began slowly packing up to the same pace as we had the day before at Martinak. Todd's agitation had subsided some, but was still vaguely beneath the surface. It seemed he was now suffering more from being agitated at the fact that he was agitated and didn't know why than anything else. As for me I was no longer affected at all and continued on having a great day with him exploring the town.

With a quick stop in the Post Office for more send offs, we went up to the Wawa I had plotted out back at the Denton library which beheld a surcharge free ATM for me. Coffee and cigarettes were to be had there as well, so we set up a mini camp for an hour or so as we situated ourselves to suddenly being in a new town, state, and environment following the few days in Denton. We then sauntered off with a curiosity of where to set up shop for hitching.

A little bit of rambling through strip malls followed by residential areas we arrived at a perfect place to catch ferry traffic heading either to US-9 or the Garden State Parkway. Our spirits were much higher now as we joked and thumbed at traffic for an hour and a half. The onset of night sent us scouting eastward, however, in hopes of finding the Atlantic side's version of the previous night's spot.

Instead of beaches and ocean we found a fishing wharf and island villa straight out of Popeye's world. A quick scout about as the sunset landed us down a secluded beach against the canal where we ducked into a den of reeds to make camp.

After laying out our camp in preparation for the possibility of rain that night we began debriefing each other on the day. Both of us were still perplexed at the mood shift in Todd but theories were forming. We both felt like the euphoria of the day before was a reward for learning the lessons of the weekend; that of patience and letting go of control. With that, it felt very much like now we were beginning on a new lesson. It was this transition to another unknown that we were thinking was the source of Todd's subtle irritation. As for what was the new lesson, it seemed to be now figuring out how to live practically in this state of mind.

Click here for Todd's perspective.