Jacksonville

When I left the ocean, in Washington, I had forty miles planned out on the map. The other 3380 were figured out along the way. And I didn't even decide that Jacksonville was the final destination until I got into Tennessee, if I remember correctly.
But Florida was always the end goal, the distant lollipop on the big stick. The ocean was, and still is, the true end, but Florida was the name that I kept polishing in my head. And it's amazing to me how something that was for so long only ethereal, has become real. Has suddenly become a solid thing, under my feet.

I didn't ever really question that I would get to Florida. Out of pride, I knew that I'd force myself, because I'm the kind of person who wouldn't let myself go home to friends and family unless I'd made it. I don't mean to say that I have to finish everything I start - because that would draw some major jeers from the peanut gallery - but mean, instead, that I needed to do this thing, in particular. That this trip, this one great notion of mine, needed to be finished.
But there was a nagging feeling, nonetheless, that Florida might not be there, when I needed it. As if it could have been some elaborate joke I'd let myself believe in, some childhood fantasy that wouldn't - that couldn't - come true.

Three days ago I crossed a river, and stood on holy ground. The moment came quickly. Though the line between states is always drawn brightly, this boundary, from Georgia, seemed clearer. There was no period of transition.

There are moments, for all of us, when life changes quickly, changes almost instantly and without warning. The 'Where were you when JFK was shot' syndrome. A particular time in our lives when we realize that in a single moment, everything changes.
But in the long run, these moments are few. Both truth and the change it instigates are dealt to us in small doses, on the norm. And though, in my story, Florida seemed to come quickly, it was obviously something planned, something expected. Something that wasn't based on one life changing event but seven months worth of trial.

I arrived in Jacksonville yesterday. Checked into my hotel and settled in for the night. Wayne is here, and so are Don and Carol and their daughter Kathy and her husband Fran, and others arrive bit by bit. The stories are building, still, but now there's only one thing that I can concentrate on.

Tomorrow I finish the walk. Find out if the ocean is really where it's supposed to be and stick my feet in the water. Mileage wise I'm essentially done already; catharsis wise I'm a thousand miles away.

A while ago I got a comment on one of my blogs that I didn't know what to think of, or how to respond to. The comment, if you want to look it up and read it entirely, came in October's 'Kennett Again' post, and I take a small quote from it here:

"I do not support any particular group but I would say that if when your done your trek, you might turn around and support, say, UNICEF or even the Salvation Army. These people are taking down the tree at the roots and not just one branch at a time."

If there's one thing that I've learned from the walk, it's that pessimism ain't good for nothing. It's true, yes, that for every child we give shoes to, there's another who needs a coat. And another who needs a meal. But that's no way to look at the world. Look at the world through that perspective and you'll drown.
We do what we can. Take up our plastic shovels and help move the mountain. We can't change the world all at once. Can't take on the whole tree. We do, indeed, have to change the world one branch at a time. One step at a time. And as they say at Soles4Souls, one pair at a time.