jesse white crow
a man walking miles from nowhere with two trekking poles has something on his mind. not that walking sticks make a hiker any more than plaid knickers make a golfer. but a man who knows how to use those poles this far from home – something big is in the offing.
***
i hadn’t meant to drive on the natchez trace. i had been content on highway 61. i knew where i was going – natchez and beyond. an impulsive detour led me down the trace and past a walker with a large umbrella propped above his head. it was his personal palm tree against the beat of heat.
i saw him and wanted to stop. but i drove. i looked for a rest area to pull over and wait for him. by the time i found one about two miles down the road, i’d decided i wouldn’t stop. i didn’t want to bother the man’s rhythm. besides, i didn’t know how to make a friend of a stranger. would i open with: so, would you like a banana?
but a quarter mile past the picnic area, i stopped, did a three-point turn in the road and went back. i waited. for 30 minutes i waited, unsure what his reaction would be to a stalker in a volkswagen bus.
***
jesse whitecrow is a 42-year-old “mixed blood” – french-canadian and crow. walking from maine to louisiana – the first leg of his w-shaped zig and zag up and down the country – he’s figured some things out about life.
“the big thing for me was i had this idea when i was 5,” he said. “i couldn’t shake it.”
jesse says he had a typical toxic american childhood in massachusetts. but he also had a map on the wall above his bed.
that was it, the ember that lasted almost 40 years until he did something about it.
“my life was so far off course. it was kind of like using a camcorder for a hammer. it might knock the nails in but…”
he started the walk after an eight-year marriage ended.
“i wasn’t giving 100 per cent, especially in my marriage. i wasn’t taking it seriously. i’m really blessed that she’s still my friend.”
his ex-wife drove him from massachusetts to maine to begin his walk. she’s continued to be a motivating force throughout, urging him to complete the task that he must.
“it’s like a log going across a river, blocking everything else from going by. until i put things in order, i was a beaver dam. everything was destined to fail.
“if you jinx the order, you will never be happy. once you do what you’re supposed to be doing, the force that’s behind you says, ‘hey, let’s cut him some slack.’ then the things you need, the money you need, the people you need will all be there for you.”
now he treads a fine line between solving his needs with store bought goods – tea, coffee beans, pancake batter – and living off the land – hunting snakes and snails, and finding sassafras leaves, green briars and cat tails for vitamins.
it was a calling. it became an answer. now it’s a lifestyle.
“it’s been a boiling down of what’s real, what’s not. it’s really great. it’s a sincere way of living.”
***
while i sat at a picnic table in shade, jesse kept working. everything in his day requires energy and time. when the walking is done, he has laundry to wash, food to hunt and/or cook. while we talked he fixed himself coffee and fried some back hand pancakes.
“back hand pancakes?”
“yeah, because they’re so hot you have to toss them back and forth with your hands.”
i tossed, caught and ate two.
when i bid my new friend farewell and walked across the 35 yards of grass to boiohaemum, jesse called after me:
“hey, adam. i think there’s a piece of each of us that wants to do the other’s journey.”
it was a statement with an implied question: what do you think, am i right?
the self-answering question felt right.
***
i had never considered that in my road trip, i would meet a fellow transient of such a nature.
i’m glad i waited for him. i’m glad he likes bananas.
jesse white crow is telling his own story of his nearly finished (as of 01/2008) three-year journey. he will write a book and be on oprah. for now, you can follow him through the blog he is keeping of his experiences: www.whitecrowwalking.com.