Backpacker Magazine – May 2005

The Unbearable Lightness Of Being Scott Williamson

To hike from Mexico to Canada and back, a man needs strength and speed and luck. He needs something else, too. If only he knew what it was.

by: Steve Friedman

It's the spring of 1996 and the left side of your face is missing a functioning salivary gland. You don't have a steady job or health insurance. You don't know if you'll make it back to Mexico this year, or even if you'll make it to the Canadian border. You have no idea about the difficulties and pain that lurk in the decade ahead, about what loss will do to you. It doesn't matter, though. You are blessed, rich beyond anyone's wildest dreams. You have the mountain peaks and the stars and a warm fire and corn and chili and okra and corned beef hash and your tarp and your very good friend drinking a beer, your brother who you have tried to teach about balance and who has taught you so much about joy. You have never been good at beginnings and endings, but that's okay, because beginnings and endings don't really matter here. Maybe there is no beginning, no ending. Maybe--yeah, it's cheesy, it's kind of new agey--life and death are part of the same cycle, and sometimes one death can sustain another life, the cosmic wheel and all that. So maybe the story ends in 1996. Maybe it begins here, too. Maybe all that counts is the journey and you have that. Maybe there is only now, and you have now. You have this moment, underneath the branches of the western hemlock tree, with your hiking partner, who has become your best friend, who has become your brother. You have everything you need. You have everything you will ever need.