Sadness

A little belatedly, some thoughts from Monday afternoon. A more upbeat post will follow soon....

It's an eerie experience here, listening to the coverage of the Marathon bombing on NPR. One of the best/worst parts of being on the trail is the isolation, the sensation of being apart from the rest of the world. In my current position, I get a taste of both the trail in all of its unplugged glory as well as the "real" technologically-saturated world. But I do have to keep my phone charged for work, so I often listen to NPR in the car while juicing up.
And today it is particularly jarring. As a former Boston resident--technically, the People's Republic of Cambridge--I know all of the places mentioned in the news briefs and have lots of friends living there. But without a data connection, there is no way to know if they're all safe.
It's a very slow afternoon here at Springer. The heavy fog that shrouded the summit this morning has cleared, leaving behind a beautiful, sunny afternoon. So, here I sit in the woods with only the sound of the breeze in the trees, not even a hiker in sight, listening to the explosions and screams so far away. How can it feel so distant and so immediate at the same time? Hoping for the health and safety of our friends and everyone else in the Boston community.