On the Path of Synchronicity and Metaphor

I think a little background information is needed to illustrate the entire magic of this past weekend regarding recent prompts and posts.

Gerry is one of, if not, my best friend ever. His friendship is almost sixty years old and going strong. This friendship has lasted through time and distance since we have lived almost five hundred miles (800 km) for over forty of those years. Usually this is our adventure season. Starting in mid-August, going through the end of the year, we get together for at least three adventures. One of them being the first weekend in September. But this is not just any year, this is 2020. All of our adventures have been canceled for the year because of Covid19. About two weeks ago Gerry called me to see if I wanted to do an alternative adventure. We planned a trip to meet in the middle with Gerry driving about six hours and me driving about four.

Our friendship has been one of synchronicity. Gerry and I have run a combined total of twenty-seven marathons. My total being three. My last marathon was Gerry’s first. Just before the end, we both heard a loud popping sound. It was my knee. I finished but my knee started to give me problems and I soon stopped running. Gerry ran twenty-three more. Most of them raising funds for the Leukemia Foundation. He raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for that cause. The last one he ran was to represent his father who lost his life to the disease the prior year. His father contracted Leukemia late in his life, never having symptoms most of the time he was fundraising.

Now to this year. Until Covid19 closed my gym, I swam daily for exercise. I would swim 72 lengths of the pool. I did not regularly walk. Although I was in good general shape, when you are sixty-seven there is not a huge crossover. I could walk but would not walk too far and definitely not choose heavy terrain to walk. After a few weeks of my gym being closed, I started to walk daily. I built up to a brisk: three miles (5km). When the gym reopened I decided to do both. So I now walk 5 km and swim 1.5 km every day.

So we are driving opposite directions and arrive at the hotel a minute apart. Gerry is just unloading his stuff when I pull in behind him. Remember the Algebra problem about two people leaving and how fast they would have to go to meet at a particular place at a particular time? Well, we lived that. When we got to our room, Gerry said he would like to cover the distance he would traditionally run 13.1 miles (21 km) over the weekend. I said that was a good general plan. The first day we did some drinking and eating and chatting so we lost that day.

Saturday we decided to hike a spur of the Appalachian Trail. It is a trail that goes through the mountains on the Eastern part of the United States. We hiked for a couple hours, the second being a quite vertical trail that we did for a while, then the steep descent. When we got back to the car, I checked and we had done almost exactly five miles (8 km). We were both a bit sore. Gerry more so because he survived a significant case of Covid19 during March. He is still not fully recovered. We talked about it and decided that instead of the full distance he had done at least the usual time and was pleased with that.

Sunday morning I looked on my phone and found Trexler Nature Preserve about fifteen minutes away. It said it was easy hiking with a vertical change of about two hundred feet (60 meters). When we got there we saw no maps and followed a path away from the parking lot.

About ten minutes into our hike, we spotted a trail marker blue and yellow. We decided to follow that. We followed it until we got to a parking lot that had a map on display. There were hand maps we took. We looked at the map and saw no markers of where we were. The hand map had no blue-yellow trail although there were over 15 trails with different markings listed. We saw other people but nobody coming near the picnic table we were seated at. Finally a couple that looked to be in their 70’s walked up. We asked them about where we were. They told us they walked there all the time. That the path we took blue-yellow as well as the parking lot we were in were not on the map. They were only three or four months old. They told us where we were and how to get to the zoo and eventually back to our car. They told us near our car was an observation tower that had a great view.

We continued on and found the ford where cars still drive through the water as part of the path. We found the zoo. Which timed out well. We were both hungry and thirsty. My blood sugar dropping (I am a type 1 diabetic). Synchronicity again right time right place for food. We walked through the park. Backtracked and finally found the Red Trail. We started following the markers. Much of the path was well marked but we didn’t know the vertical change was more like a roller coaster, up and down up and down. Various times we needed to stopped and rest. Because of my walking I have done, (synchronicity) my breath quickly returned to normal and we moved on. Sometimes we would be walking quite a while without seeing a trail marker.

I thought how it was a metaphor for all of us on our path. How often have we followed the markers only to lose confidence of out true path, looking for the next marker? It takes confidence and strength to keep moving forward. Then you find it.

I also recalled the post I did a couple months ago on Path Markers illustrating the same thing (synchronicity). When we finally got back to our car, I checked our distance. We had gone 7.7 of the 8.1 miles (13 km) we needed to meet Gerry’s goal. I remembered the viewing tower. We went, took a couple pictures, and returned. The distance being 8.1 miles for a total distance in two days of 13.1 miles. The exact distance that Gerry had suggested we walk.

Oh one last synchronicity, I did a post a few weeks about a character who had a question that he didn’t ask, though, he had searched for that answer his entire life. This weekend, the answer to that question was actually posted by a high school friend on Facebook. I will not reveal what is was in case someone wishes to read the story.

Ooops, one last synchronicity, Gerry picked up a few special rocks and carried them back, although he was tired. He was taking them back so his wife could put them in her rock garden. Yes, that best friend and his lovely wife.