Gollum
On Maslow's Hierarchy, the Animal Kingdom, REI and mega landscapes. An excerpt from "Finisterre," my account of walking a thousand miles from my home in France to the western coast of Spain.
A brief excerpt from “Finisterre,” an account of walking the Camino de Santiago. I’m fifty kilometers past Toulouse, it’s been raining all morning, and I’m learning something fundamental about the elements.
Imagine the pastoral stock photo above, but it’s a downpour and there are no trees and no friendly path and you’re running a fever. Anyway, it’s sort of flat like in the picture.
The link to the full chapter and the full account is at bottom.
“A Maslow’s observation: out in the elements, there is nowhere to eat without getting drenched. I have the uncanny, “never-noticed-it-before” realization of how scarce roof-over-your-head shelter can be. There isn’t that much shelter in nature come to think of it.
For the first time in my life, it bothers me that animals limp and wander about in the rain with matted fur, exposed to the elements, never even being able to complain or make a feel-sorry-for-me face so other animals might feel bad and help them out.
As unpleasant as we are as a species, we get to do that, but in the Animal Kingdom, it’s all grim suck-it-up. I’m starting to understand the appeal of caves. (As long as you stay sort of near the door.)
Add a fever to the mix, and you should have a general idea where my head is at.
Eventually, I surrender the hunt for shelter. I sit on my backpack on a thin path—I think it’s a path— running through the middle of a vast field. I am wearing my full body armor REI mountaineering lunar-ready rain suit. It has a heavy-lidded visor that is effective at guttering the rain. Hunched over like Gollum, I protect my bread and cheese as best I can and feed myself in a stationary huddle.
Farmland rolls off in every direction.
I’m in the middle of nowhere, but I enjoy the absurdity of sitting alone in a mega landscape having lunch in some arbitrary spot like I’m in a painting. Someone might see me and think exactly that! That man is sitting alone in a mega landscape having lunch in an arbitrary spot like in a painting!”
The fever must be lifting.
Full chapter here…
Full story here…
One of my favorites of yours.
One of the first works I read of yours, and loved every bit. Finisterre speaks!