The 52 Hike Challenge Update #1

The Phone Booth at the Edge of the Trail

My husband, Ed and I are taking part in the 52 Hike Challenge, one hike each week during 2024. Because I’m a writer/sewist I’m documenting each hike in words and fabric. Each hike “earns” a fabric triangle that I’ll stitch into a quilt.

So far, we’re on track. We’ve logged in 16 hikes from January to April–mostly local parks and trails, taking advantage of the cooler temps here in Arizona.  As brutally hot weather approaches, we’ll need to head to the mountains, or woodlands. As casual hikers, we aren’t concerned about speed or miles (though the official rules state the “hikes” must be at least one mile outdoors.) We try to seek new places and invite friends and family along. And I always find a story…

On a recent hike, we met friends David and Suzanne in Green Valley, Arizona to hike the nature trail in Madera Canyon. After a beautiful hike, we stopped for lunch, then visited Desert Meadows Park, a veritable oasis in the desert. We hiked down the trail at the edge of the park, and there it was. A white stucco structure, just big enough for a person or two to stand in. A phone booth. In the desert.

According to the sign, the owner/builder of this unique structure was inspired by the wind phone in the novel The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World by Laura Imai Messina, the story about a real phone booth in a rural town in Japan that was decimated by the 2011 tsunami. The disconnected rotary telephone allows grieving family members to “speak” to loved ones who have passed on.

Stepping inside the unique space, we commented on the simplicity of the architecture and the amount of care an effort that had gone into it. A simple, black rotary phone was in the window. The sign below it read: “speak from the heart to be heard.”

Suddenly, I asked to be alone for a moment. A strange feeling came over me as I stared at the old, disconnected phone. I picked up the receiver and dialed the letters that spelled a name. I spoke from the heart, whispering words to my father who’d been gone for 24 years.

Outside the booth, a telephone wire winds around an antique glass insulator, then floats into the air. I imagined my words taking flight. Or maybe it wasn’t my imagination. 

The wind phone is a treasure offering a quiet respite, an unexpected moment of reflection as I journeyed down the path on hike # 16.

And the quilt is taking shape. It’s not stitched together yet, but I wanted to lay it out and see how it might look..16 triangles, 16 hikes, 16 stories.