On the same weekend I lost my virginity, which is a badge of some kind, I found another valuable kind of symbolism in the form of a small metal diamond nailed to a tree. As if tacked there to help remind me of the excellent fun I had among arms and legs, the piece of metal was one of many thousands just like it, fixed in places along the spines of mountains and at river confluences to tell people which way to walk. Lo and behold, I had lost my flower on a small chunk of the Australian Alps Walking Track, and I have been obsessed with the allegory of walking tracks ever since.
Actually, this is only two-thirds true. The flower part is honest, and it’s no lie that a considerable link was made that snowy weekend between myself and the mountains. But in truth, I knew long before that boozy afternoon about the spell of long-range walking paths—and the miniature road signs that direct us for months at a time from one place to the next. The other half-truth is that I’ve come to love walking paths less for walking and more for running. Walking paths are the best running routes in the world.
If I’m to wrap my identity into an atlas-sized rectangle of tin foil, I’d have to say that walking-path-love is as much a part of me now as eating rolled oats in the morning then bananas for the rest of the day. Deep lifeforces. I’ll happily run any trail, anywhere, trusting the idea that even a halfwit would never go to the trouble of putting a track somewhere that was underwhelming, or if it was, it leads you somewhere that isn’t. Such a simple willingness to run or walk any trail on any part of the planet has revealed this truth, and either the trail or the destination, most often both, are worth hitchhiking to, telling select friends about, and trespassing on if required, sometimes at all costs.
Off-track life is even more engaging for its liveliness and the bloody mess it leaves me in, and excellent stories come from finding your own path. Even being lost is something we should all do more often to dial in on our cognitive and physical thresholds. But trails that have been—over time—padded into existence by the feet of people I’ll never meet, is a spellbinding idea. As you walk and run such trails, kicking up dust or mud, it’s as if those particles are the cells of the wayfinders before
