musings from the studio and beyond ~
dawn chandler’s reflections on art and life. . . .
lost and found in the [un]real world
Last year when I came crippled off my backpacking journey, I left the trail two weeks earlier than planned. 
The frugal thing to do would have been to change my travel plans and return promptly home to New Mexico.
Fourteen days earlier and just five days into my Long Trail thru-hike, when my knees first started arguing with me, I feared I would have to abandon my walk. Sick with anxiety and the question of what to do, a fellow hiker urged me: Don’t give up. Change your plans if you have to. So you make it a section hike rather than a thru hike? Go take a zero day. Rest and ice those knees. Then come back to the trail. Maybe just for a day hike. Check it out. See how it feels. Then another day hike. Maybe you only make it this time to Killington. But you go back and you try again. You’ve done all this work to get here, you’ve put aside all of this time to be here in Vermont. Then be here.
Be here.
That’s what I wanted to do, even after leaving the trail: Keep myself immersed in Vermont — in New England. Now. But in a different way. Let my journey continue, but maybe from wheels rather than feet. Maybe along back roads rather than forest trails. Maybe staring out to distant mountains from the swaddled warmth of a woven blanket and a white rocking chair on a maple leaf garlanded porch while my knees rested….Or from the northern Vermont acreage of an old tree farm and a mowed pathway through autumn fields with a new canine friend as companion….
Thanks to the touching generosity of my ever-expanding Vermont tribe, I was able to reshape my journey in a deeply healing way. Part of the gift My Tribe gave me was that of solitude: Time to reflect on my path. I spent the last days of my sojourn alone in a beautiful home with no real connection to the outside world. No computer. No cell phone. Just me. And quiet.
Somewhere in there I purchased an inexpensive set of watercolors, brush and paper. For, though I could be without news and music for days on end, I couldn’t be without Art. And so in those silent days of healing I wrote. I read. I thought. And I painted.
A year later…and I’ve now finished my journey.
This year within 24 hours of hiking past the final white blaze of my 274-mile walk, my senses were accosted by the jeers of a media carnival. The world exploded into my solace.
Now with each unfolding media drama, the connection to my walking peace seems ever more tenuous, as though access to that tranquility were a fairy tale magic doorway that’s accessible only for a precious short time before evaporating in a cloud of faerie dust. My focus since returning to the [un]real world has shriveled, as each headline fights for my attention; my usual early bedtime protracts later and later while my head spits and spins with the mental vomit of media-fed thoughts.
No.
I can’t do this.
I won’t do this.
This morning before sunup I lock away my laptop and phone in the cabinet.
I enter my studio.
Deep breath.
I spread my Long Trail map on my table.
I dig out my journal from last year’s hike and — what’s this?
…out spill those little watercolor studies I’ve not seen in a year.
I trace my finger across the painted contour of a maple leaf.
My mind is peaceful again.
returning to autumn in new mexico
I love Vermont and I miss it.
Though not a physical resident, in the last couple of years I’ve become a resident of the soul of Vermont.
I’ve so much more to reflect on and share about my long walk through the Green Mountain forests.
The Long Trail heading north from Bear Wallow to Rte 9. Vermont.
But I am a physical and soul resident of New Mexico.
And I’ve returned home in the midst of this land’s richest enchantment.
Autumn: that blessed time of year when dry arroyos and woodland floors fill with the gold coins of cottonwood and aspen leaves. New England is renown the world over for its brilliant autumn color. But autumn in New Mexico dazzles no less. Though we may lack the Northeast’s scarlet seas of red maple, our gilded specie is spun with that quintessentially New Mexico fragrance of roasting chiles and pinon wood smoke. And Blue. Sky. Clear and sharp as a jewel.
October, deep in the Santa Fe National Forest.
Oops.
finishing unfinished business : hiking the last 100 miles of vermont’s long trail
The stuff of The Long Trail, including my late parents’ red bandanas….
Journal Entry ~ 8 September 2016 ~ evening ~ Day One
Returning to a personally sacred landscape after a long hiatus is an extraordinary experience.
In a way, it’s as though you never left.
If you’re lucky and your sacred place has not been altered by development, then it’s all so familiar — the terrain, the moss, the breeze and sound of leaves turning, the smell of birch bark and balsam and pine…. It’s as though the year(s) since you left never existed. You were here then, and you’re here now.
And that’s all that matters.
Today I returned to the Long Trail after limping off in tears nearly a year ago.
My knees had had it. My quadriceps had had it. And the pain of these things meant that mentally I had had it.
I came off the trail with 100 daunting miles ahead of me.
Today I am back to finish those last 100 miles.
It has been a good day.
I am not without my fears.
I have no idea if my knees — my body — will hold up.
I don’t know if the weather will cooperate.
I don’t know if the terrain will cooperate.
There’s so much I don’t know.
But one thing I do know:
I had to come back.
I have to walk 100 more miles.
I’m ready.
What’s funny is I wasn’t going to return this year.
I’d decided this past winter that I would wait until next year. For planning my 2015 journey was so completely consuming in the months leading up to it last year that I just felt it would be wise to give my life a break from that kind of intensity. My body could use a long rest, too, from that kind of endurance.
And my art career needed a long injection of focus after months of being largely distracted by the minutia of preparing for a thru-hike adventure.
So No. Not this year.
I would wait until 2017.
I was determined to wait until 2017 — it was the responsible thing to do — and told myself this again and again and…
Then….on a warm summer Saturday Santa Fe afternoon in June when my thoughts were once again hijacked by an intense yearning for The Trail, a voice in my head suddenly announced, Screw it. I’m going back THIS year.
Which is why
I found myself
on September 11th 2016 summitting Vermont’s highest peak….
September 11, 2016 — pausing atop Mount Mansfield. Photo by LT Sole Sister Sylvie “Charger” Vidrine.
and why
two weeks after that
I found myself
finally at my Journey’s End….
DONE. And feeling — dare I say? — just a wee bit proud at the Northern Terminus of the Long Trail. Note my parents’ red bandanas around my neck; they carried me the whole way.
Moments after reaching Journey’s End, walking to the border of Vermont and Canada, having finally finished hiking the last 100 miles of Vermont’s Long Trail. Look carefully in the distant shadowed mountain forest, and you’ll see the extraordinary long line of “The Slash” — the border between the US and Canada.
After a brisk (and steep) morning ascent, the view from the summit of Jay Peak — the last major peak of my Long Trail Journey. Finally got my “trail legs” the second-to-last day of my journey. Figures.
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More on Dawn’s journey hiking Vermont’s Long Trail:
where a walk across vermont begins
where a walk across vermont ends
falling, gratitude and why I want to return to the trail
painting among lovebirds, enemies & johnny depp
santa fe, new mexico morning ~ 17 august 2016 ~ photo by dawn chandler
A week ago my pup and I hiked up to one of our favorite spots high in the forest above Santa Fe.
Take one of the major thoroughfares, then turn off onto a well-used ‘unofficial’ trail; after a ways cross a meadow; make your way through the far evergreen grove and eventually you’ll find another, hidden, meadow. Cross that to the rise on the far side and you’ll find our favorite perch. There’s a decent view there of the surrounding ridge-lines peeking over the treetops, and on some days if we sit just right we can see the plains of the high desert reaching from the outskirts of Santa Fe to the distant blue outline of the Ortiz Mountains.
About this same time last year when we were perched up here painting….
above ravens ridge trail ~ by dawn chandler ~ oil on panel ~ 8″ x 10″ ~ en plein air
We were just packing up when we heard voices. It’s kind of fun because our perch is really only a few dozen yards from the trail, so we frequently hear hikers, though they are unaware that they have accidental eavesdroppers. In this case it was a man and a woman who seemed to be making there way across the first meadow.
Suddenly I panicked, speculating that they might be searching for a sunny spot for a romantic tryst, soon to be interrupted by my pup and me.
Moments later, after their voices and language became more distinct, did I realize a romantic tryst was definitely not on their agenda. Rather, now I was worried that they might kill each other, with me bearing witness. For they were yelling and calling each other the most unspeakable obscenities all the while hunting for mushrooms. The vitriol shouted back and forth through the forest was enough to discolor my painting. So much for solitude.
I let out a piercing whistle.
Silence.
I whistled again, even louder.
Then the woman’s voice, a tone of questioning worry, called out, “Hello?”
“Just letting you know you’re not alone up here!”
“Oh….Okay.”
All was quiet….for less than two minutes, when the battery of shouting insults and expletives reignited.
My Pup and I cut a wide swath around the yelling so as not to encounter them, though their shouts carried through the forest a good ways.
Soon a pair of Australian Shepherd-ish mutts ran up to us and moments later their green-eyed owner appeared — Johnny Depp’s twin brother, I feel sure. Clothed in a way that said gypsy, he was armed with two Trader Joe’s sacks plump with foraged mushrooms.
“Are you with the Love Birds?” I asked, their obscenities reverberating off the trees.
“God, NO.”
“Unbelievable, eh? Well here’s hoping they shut-up soon, and you’re able to enjoy some solitude and peace up here.”
“No kidding. Thanks! Peace to you, too.”
—————————————
A year has rolled on since our encounter with the Angry Couple, and mushroom season is upon us again. I expected—hoped—to see some when we returned to our perch a week ago.
But there were none that I could see.
Then Sunday — just a couple days ago — on a different trail, I almost tripped on autumn.
Back to our perch this morning, where I’d hoped to find—now a week later—our small meadow dotted with the spangled red domes of Amanitas as it was last year. But no red appeared, save a swag of paintbrush here and there.
We settled onto our perch. Last week we sat in the sun, with me facing the eastern ridge-line and sunshine. After a few minutes The Pup was panting in the heat, I had to rig a sun shelter for her with my pack and rain jacket.
This time, we sat in shade — easier on The Pup, as well as my eyes as I try to decipher color. After a few minutes of sitting still though, The Pup got up to move into the sun, and I noted with some surprise a definite autumnal chill to the breeze. I pulled my wool sweater out of my pack, the first time all season.
Amanita muscaria, also known as fly egaric or fly amanita ~ photo by Onderwijsgek at nl.wikipedia
An hour later with clouds building we made our way back down our path, stopping briefly to converse with frustrated mushroom hunters:
“The rains have come late this season. Maybe that’s why there are none.”
“Maybe they’re just delayed, as the rains were. ‘Hope so, anyway…”
Later, back home and on toward dinner time, I turned on my phone after several hours of being ‘unplugged.’ It buzzed — a text from a friend who works near the plaza; he’d sent it 45 minutes earlier: Look up on the peak!
I couldn’t image that whatever he’d seen — maybe a rainbow? a unique cloud formation? — was still there. But it was time for our late afternoon walk, so we’d scope it out from the park.
There, peeking up over the city was….
SNOW!
On Santa Fe Baldy!
16 August 2016.
I never imagined when I felt in the high forest a chill breeze this morning, that it was not autumn in the wind, but rather winter.
I hope the mushrooms don’t mind.
the view from our perch ~ by dawn chandler ~ oil on panel ~ 8″ x 10″ ~ en plein air
illuminated by morning light ~ by dawn chandler ~ oil on panel ~ 8″ x 10″ ~ en plein air
amulets of the trail
“SPLAT”
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“SPLAT”
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“SPLAT”
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“SPLAT”
…was the sound as I emptied my PO box this afternoon, depositing most of its contents into the waste bin of recycled trees. Of the 4-inch stack of mail in my little locked cubbie-hole, the only thing worth saving was one magazine: the latest issue of The Long Trail News, the quarterly publication of Vermont’s Green Mountain Club.
I sometimes hesitate to look at The Long Trail News. Because I know I’m going to feel pain when I look at it. The pain of near heart-bursting longing to return to Vermont; to get back on The Trail.
This afternoon was no different. Upon returning home I considered leaving the magazine in my bag, for I felt weary. Weary of the interminable election. Weary of alarming news stories. Weary of the day’s heat. . . of cleaning house. . . of not enough sleep. I needed a break.
Hmmm…Maybe I did want to look at it now, and let my mind escape to Vermont.
Settling into a comfy chair in my living room, mug of tea in one hand and The Long Trail News in the other, I started, for whatever reason, at the back, on the last page. There I found “From the Journal of Idgie,” by a woman I’d met on the trail. Though she likely wouldn’t remember me, we shared a room with several others at Inn at Long Trail two weeks into my hike. She started her hike on September 13th and finished on October 6th. Four weeks — just a little shy of what I’d hoped to hike it in.
But she finished.
And I haven’t.
Yet.
My heart tightened a little with envy.
I skimmed forward a few pages, noting articles and announcements I’ll return to later, for more careful reading.
Then I got to the center of the magazine, where my heart constricted as I read the huge bold headline:
YOU DID IT!
171 Hikers Complete 272-Mile Footpath Through Green Mountains: Congratulation to the following hikers who walked the rugged footpath over the Green Mountain Range from the Massachusetts border to the Canadian border and became Long Trail end-to-enders.
And there listed were the names of the 171 thru-hikers of 2015.
I would have been 172.
I swallowed hard, and read through the names, my mind a stew of envy coupled with joy as I recognized my trail brethren: Mathieu “MapMat” Bastien – Montreal, QC; Justin “Juke Box” Bondesen – Bryant Pond, ME; Fred “Tater Salad” Beddall & Kristen “Swift” Sykes – Florence, MA; Reid “Mowgli” Van Keulen – Kingston, NH; Anna “Idgie”Stevens – Storeham, VT.
No “Dawn ‘TaosDawn’ Chandler”
My lips tightened across my mouth as I wiped the corner of my eye.
Next year, damint. My name will be there next year!
I let out a sigh, turned the page, and admired a beautiful two-page spread of photographs of Long Trail Shelters.
Upon the page these rustic structures sit like wise Buddhas, nestled among the trees. Some I know intimately from nights spent and meals had upon their plank floors. The one in the center on the far right is Montclair Glen — the last Long Trail shelter I laid eyes on, for it was there on September 27, 2015 where I limped off the trail. . . .
My eyes curved around the page . . . .
. . . and There was my name.
Above my name was a poem — my poem — one I’d written earlier this spring, and submitted on a whim to The Long Trail News.
Amulets Along Vermont’s Long Trail
My hand bolts
through darkness
to silence
the alarm on my watch
tucked in the spidered corner
of this worn wooden shelter.
No one rises
earlier than I
slow with the weight
of a half-century
moving silently
so as not to awaken
strangers with whom I’ve shared
intimacy of sleep.
Narrow funnel of light
channeling from my forehead
I stuff my bed, my food, my sodden clothes
into my pack, gather
my pen, my pages, my damp socks
lace my boots, and stagger,
hefting my small, heavy world
onto my back.
Patting my pockets,
my map presses my hip, my
compass my breast, my knife
folded against my waist,
as I bandage my prayer within
my father’s red bandana
wrapped around my knee
as I entwine my prayer
etched in two bands of silver
encircling my wrists.
I breathe in and breathe out
Rumi’s prayer in curls
of wet birch bark
as I step into the damp night
of morning.
by Dawn ‘TaosDawn’ Chandler
2015 Long Trail Hiker
Early morning September 24 at Emily Proctor Shelter—Long Trail Mile 141. The photo belies the fact that it was close to darkness when I snapped this shot; Mowgli and JukeBox remain asleep. Per usual, they’ll soon pass me on the trail. Three days later I’ll come off the trail due to unbearably painful knees and quadriceps—but with a plan to return. . . . one day.