IWALLK: A Living Magazine - Day 212 - Homecoming - Spartanburg: Blindness, But Not Blinded

I woke to the coldest morning yet on this present Journey. Poking my head out of the opening of the sleeping bag, the bite of the air really made an impression. I was warm in the bag, and the inside of the tent wasn't overly bad either, but it was noticeably colder than the morning before. I took some readings with my thermometer: inside the sleeping bag--59° F, inside the tent--29° F, outside--19° F. These are somewhat proportionate to what I'd speculated about in the past, but never measured until now.

The last thing I wanted to do was get out of that bag! But I had no choice and needed to buck up and get my ass in gear. The order is always as follows: Sit up, put any stray tent floor items in the pack, stuff the side pocket items in my pants (wallet, flashlight, pen, and camera), put any trash in a plastic bag, slip out of the sleeping bag and pull the foot end up enough to put my shoes on without it getting dirty, turn, kneel and fold up the sleeping bag--jamming it into its pack pocket, unzip the tent and then tarp/fly flaps, place the pack outside, climb out and pull the six corners of the tarp/fly off the pole ends, fold the tarp/fly, put it in its bag, pull the foot end of the tent corners off their poles and slip the small pole out, collapse it and set it aside, do the same for the head end of the tent, then take the spine pole out and place it with the other poles, shove them in their bag--fingers now numb (warm them), fold the tent and put it in its bag, pick up and fold the green footprint tarp, put it in its bag, place each of the four bags in the pack--tent first, then tarp/fly, then poles at an angle to be able to close the pack, then cover it all with the green tarp bag, and zip.

Pretty involved huh? Total time: nine minutes. That's exactly what I did on this morning. Except, for one potentially disastrous thing. As I picked up the tarp/fly bag to place it in the pack, one of the pricker bush branches that had been under it, sprang up and directly hit me in the right eye--a barb sticking into it, just above the cornea, then pulling out. This was among the potential consequences of working in the dark--blindness.

It felt like my whole face had been hit by a two by four. Normally, in a well-lit place, instincts (which function almost instantly--much faster than one can decide upon) would have closed my eye, and the barb would have only hit the lid. Even instinctually, I had no warning (conscious or unconscious); no way to avoid this incident. I forgot about the cold, and cupped my eye. The tears were just gushing down. Not knowing how bad the damage was yet, I was quite fearful that it had struck directly in the center of my eye. Strangely, my concern was not so much for the eye itself, but that I might have to leave all this stuff in the field, walk to a business and get medical help. I wanted ANYTHING over that.

The thought of having someone call an ambulance, explaining what happened and where I was, and what I was doing, and the project, and that my stuff was still out there, and all the bullshit of being in a hospital... LORD! I really didn't care at that point whether I'd end up blind or not, I felt I had to finish the pack up, then deal with the eye.

I warmed my hands again after strapping the pack on, and just let my eye water as much as it could. I noticed that my ability to focus with that eye had not been affected; a huge relief. It really hurt, in an aching way, rather than a sharp pain. And, the small wound felt like a piece of sand had been lodged under my eyelid. Now, came the daunting task of ripping my way through a hundred more feet of prickers, fallen branches, and tall grass attaching "beggar's lice" to me. I did it, and it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Next was the challenge of looking all natural-like as I stepped out onto the side of the road (wiping my eye, pulling bits of grass and flat burs off my sweater, while trying not to let my hands get too cold).

I'd seen a second Starbucks on the Google Map the evening before, besides the crappy one at Ingles Market, and walked to where I thought it was. But the friggin thing never came into site. There was a Burger King across from the missing Starbucks. I sighed, knowing I would struggle to get online there. I walked into the place, wiping my red, watering eye and ordered a coffee from the curious counter person, then sat under the blastingly intense, white fluorescent lights and attempted to get online. No dice. Nothing worked. I got up and grabbed a napkin, then walked to the men's room to assess the damage in the mirror. The eye looked very bad, but there was no obviously puncture wound.

Returning to my seat, I dumped the creamer and a couple sugars into my very weak coffee, dabbing at my eye. I noticed that the tears were not flowing as heavily after about fifteen minutes. With no Wi-Fi there, and no Starbucks to be seen, the only other option was to walk back to the McDonald's I'd worked at the night before.

Sometimes, it just seemed like everything was consciously working against me. I've learned to deal with that negative momentum - especially on this most recent Journey, from Athens - by forcing myself to think of all the things that went well that morning. To me, this was at first a laughable but necessary task. Then, as I realized that the branch hadn't poked my cornea, that I'd made it out of the field without being discovered, that I was able to get out of the bitterly cold air and have a coffee (water-flavored at it was), that all of my stuff was still okay--including the laptop, I felt a bit better.

Heading out, the cold air felt good against my eye. Both eyes were watering a bit just from the frigid morning temperature. But it was becoming light out - meaning the temperature would be rising - as I walked the grass trail (there were no sidewalks) back under the bridge toward the shining golden arches...

Thought this was vaguely reminiscent of an American flag--ironic though.

God help the person not paying attention along this path, or any small creature, for that matter.

Thankfully, the day would become less and less intense. I got to McDonald's and was met by the smiling face of the four foot Mayan floor-sweeping lady. Her pleasant presence was comforting. She remembered me too, knew where I was going to sit, and went right over to wipe it down. This had to have been one of my favorite McDonald's yet. There was something about the Hispanic staff--their friendly, humorous demeanor as they did what they needed to do to run a tight ship, and treat each customer like a friend. This is a Latino trait that I've noticed all across America.

I'd already had my coffee, so I bought a hot chocolate (good one too--with whipped cream and a drizzle of chocolate sauce on top!). Then I sat down at my newly wiped off table/desk and worked all morning and some of the afternoon writing and publishing a post. I also looked up the location of the missing Starbucks. It was where I had gone, but down the side street off of Route 29. Mental note posted.

But, truly the prize for the day went to locating a new sleep spot; one that was across from the Spartan 16 Cinema, and just down the street from that Starbucks. I wasn't positive it would work, but all signs pointed to a sheltered and level area.

By late afternoon I was on my way there. I walked past the Starbucks, and down the side road that passed by the cinema. The area was ideal in many ways. No prickers, mostly pine trees (meaning no bare hardwoods), so I would have a good natural shield from the road. The security profile was truly perfect, being an island surrounded by streets. That meant no large animals and probably no human walkers (the temperature and time of day helped in that regard as well). As much as I comment on not seeing people walk in this part of the country, I sure am glad when it comes to these sleep spots.

When no traffic was around, I plunged into the tall grass and through the short pines, finding an excellent little spot to get set up...

Neat as you please!

My eye was feeling much better, not watering unless I rubbed it which I tried not to do. It was getting very cold again, but was not as bad as the night before. There wasn't much else to do, so I climbed into the tent and went through the reverse order of activities described in the second paragraph of this post. Sleep came quickly.