Go Your Own Way
“Why do you have to follow a trail at all?” my grandpa asked. I’d just told him that I wanted to solo-hike the Appalachian Trail or the Pacific Crest Trail, the two pinnacles of American long-distance hiking. I squirmed, realizing that my bid for reckless freedom fit so neatly in a pre-defined package. (Not to mention that the trek would hardly be solitary — last year, over 4,000 people attempted the entire AT, in addition to the throngs of day hikers and section hikers leaving their boot-prints throughout the 2,200-mile trail.)
My cousin Zoe, Grandpa tells me, recently built a bike and pedaled from San Francisco to Mexico. Zoe is the kind of radically free, self-directed soul I’m not brave enough to emulate. After a year or two studying at a tiny, hippy college in Maine, she dropped out and found her way to the Mexican border, where she helps people survive the desert crossing. She practices activism in a far more visceral way than holding up hand-lettered posters on cool marble steps. Zoe lives on almost nothing, forgoing food and facing arrest, surrendering herself completely to her cause. I heard she once wrote a poem to barter for a clean pair of underwear. I think she’d be as likely to hike the AT as to take a 9–5 job in some windowless, cubicled office — which is to say, not at all.
There’s as much comfort in following a well-marked trail as there is in justifying the experience to others. It’s almost romantic to say that you’ve hiked a distance known and named. The very label is intoxicating, along with the sense of belonging to a larger community of blistered backpackers. The feat garners admiration, and most people have a sense of your story without much need to explain.
Like many soon-to-graduate college seniors, I’m often asked about my future plans. As an environmental studies and biology major, I tend to be less bothered by the question, than say, an Economics major whose friends have high-paying finance jobs at the start of senior year. My peers and professors are drawn to hiking and worldly wandering, and don’t think farming or carpentry are entirely unusual occupations.
Still, at times Middlebury presents a challenge to anyone daring to take a path less traveled. (Even though our favorite local poet professed to do so).
A few summers ago, I worked for the Nature Conservancy in a field office, where I spent most days outside, sweating in dirt-caked overalls. I learned how to use a chainsaw, held 30-pound snapping turtles (at a safe distance), and mowed acres of fields with our rusty red tractor. When I told a biology classmate about my summer internship, she replied with an encouraging “Oh, that’s an important experience, too,” as if this work was a second choice, a lesser thing compared to the all-too serious work of data collection, paper writing, and so forth (which I also did, by the way, but that’s beside the point). After that summer, my already dwindling academic passion turned to vehement dislike, and I seriously considered dropping out. I realized how much I crave the outdoors and work that uses both my body and brain. However, I wasn’t brave enough to abandon desks and white-walled classrooms for a love I could not define.
It took me a while to realize biology classes no longer thrilled me, and longer still to try something new. I started building sets for the theater department, and recently took a sculpture class, working with wood and metal. As a self-described pyromaniac, the thrill of melting steel to steel in showers of sparks is nothing short of intoxicating. I chose the class over an environmental studies class with a favorite professor, explaining to her that I’d always wanted to learn how to weld. “Well, you’ll have a skill to fall back on if you’re ever out of a job,” she replied brightly. Intentionally or not, the comment implied that welding is not a pursuit you dream of from the ivory tower, but rather an inferior alternative, an emergency measure at best.
If an education gives us the privilege of choice, why must it limit our options to those that are most palatable to our peers?
Like many in my position, I’m a work-in-progress 20-something with a travel itch and a bad case of senioritis. A few things I know: I want to visit other countries, share joy, cultivate community, and take care of the earth.
The people I mythologize and idolize in Vermont and Maine (where I’m from) are those who carry knowledge in their hands and wisdom in their bodies. These are people for whom few words mean more than reams of essays. They don’t need resumes and job applications, because their lives and work speak for themselves. I can easily imagine myself as another quintessential small-town New Englander: one who writes poetry, builds custom furniture, serves on the town council, tends a garden, and runs a community dance group.
There are so many ways to do what feels right– I don’t have to be a famous conservation biologist, get a well-paying job, or publish academic articles to be a good person in the world. All of these are fine pursuits, lauded by the collegiate eye, but they are not my dreams. Truth be told, I’d love to learn how to fix toilets, build houses, bake bread, milk cows, store root vegetables for winter and make my own pickles. I’d love to work in a café, build a cabin, and sail between continents.
In search of concrete post-college plans, I applied for the Peace Corps. Somewhat arbitrarily, I chose a position in Madagascar, teaching English to middle and high school students. Though I was tempted by the delicious newness of rural villages and unfamiliar lands, the outcome had little bearing on my happiness. Yet after a coworker and a favorite professor wrote enthusiastic recommendations, the job became my obsession. I learned more about Madagascar (from its Wikipedia page, at least), and even visited the CCI to review my resume for the first time in my Middlebury career. However, though I come from a family of teachers, the prospect of a full-time position began to terrify me. After spending hours preparing 15-minute lessons for J-term class on teaching English, I realized how little I understand my native tongue, and how strange it would be for someone who stumbles over spoken words to teach others how to talk. Following a stiffly formal Skype interview and an anxious period of waiting, I read the rejection email from the Peace Corps with a surprising sense of relief. I’d begun to want the position largely because others had lent strong support my so-called dream. But did I really care about the children in some Malgasy village I’d never seen, or the dubious task of promoting English and the wonders of my home country? Many people had told me, “The Peace Corps will look great on your resume.” The disconcerting repetition of that comment convinced me not to apply a second time. More than the job itself, I had craved the safety of a neatly packaged experience, and the satisfaction that I’d done it. In reality, what did I have to offer to a place I’d never seen, and a people I had never met? What did I have to give?
I recently attended a dinner with members of the President’s Leadership Council, a group of well-to-do Middlebury alumni involved in advising the college’s future. In my bright green car filled with bird feathers and sand-sticky seashells, I drove a group of other students up a long crushed stone driveway to one of the swankiest houses I’ve entered in Vermont. For the evening, at least, it was vaguely thrilling to navigate trays of hors d’oeuvres and CEOs with wine glasses. As one of three seniors in the room, I was asked again and again about my future plans. I happily talked about my upcoming summer of beekeeping and gardening, and my hopes of finding carpentry work in the fall. Elegantly (or so I imagined) nibbling a skewer of polenta and Brie, I felt pleased to proclaim my uncertainty, and prouder still not to care how my words were received. (The response, to be fair, was actually quite encouraging. Perhaps I’d been my own harshest critic all along.)
I’m totally scared, of course. I don’t have some Katahdin-like pinnacle to guide my way. But perhaps it’s not the end I seek but the trail itself, this thing that creates itself with every footstep, seen only from a long look back.
