Kickstarter

The Goods: I’m going to write a book called Walk It Off, Nottoli that should be ready by May 2013. I want you to buy it now and so I have the means to finish it up.

The Idea: When I was kid and I got a broken finger or a baseball to the head, my coaches would say, "Walk it off, Nottoli." I think they over-prescribed this panacea, but for certain kinds of pain, it’s the only remedy.  Walk it Off, Nottoli will chronicle every angry, reluctant step of my SECOND 2000-mile march for answers to the mystery of my frickin’ existence.

The Story: Twenty years ago, restless and full of competing ambitions, I walked the Appalachian Trail in hopes of launching my life on a firm footing. That  journey left its imprint on everything I do. It showed me the meaning of possible (impossible minus the belief that it is impossible), impossible (a task not yet completed), and the depth of my resolve (Murietta Trench-ian), which has gotten me into so much trouble.

After completing the trail I looked for an "impossible" mission to throw myself into. The most impossible thing I could find was non-profit theater. From 1997 to 2012, I poured all of my resolve into a small professional theater company. I went from patching holes to building sets to spearheading the expansion of the award-winning theater and serving as its Artistic Director. On Dec. 31st, 2011, the theater folded, a victim of my grandiose visions, a global economic recession and some rotten timing.

Three weeks before the 20-year anniversary of my first completion of the AT, I was still stewing in my failure, when my old trail-buddy, Moonshine, came to me in a dream and said, “Grab your shit, we’re going again.”

“But, I’ve got a wife, a life," I said, “And, I don’t even have shoes!”

“Dude, you’ve got a credit card, just get your shit in the truck and let’s go.”

So, I furiously stuffed things into my pack and ran out of the house without any shoes. Crazy thing is, in the dream, it felt like absolutely the right thing to do.

I woke up laughing. It was really hard the first time. Why would I do that to myself? Again? I told my wife about it, expecting her to laugh with me.

“Well, obviously, you have to go,” she said. “You’ll write about it, of course.”

Walk it Off, Nottoli is the story of shedding the pain and outrage of the last 20 years, and acquiring perspective for the next 20. I'll retrace the steps that launched my life on such a hair-raising trajectory and, in the process, bring myself back down to earth.

My wife says it’s an archetypal journey, the Odyssean journey home and the stripping away of the ego so I can be king of my own life. Um, okay. I just know that if I don’t get out there and hike like hell, the foundering of my life's work will eat me like a giant, one-eyed sheep herder.

A key part of this journey involves comparing notes with the three friends that I originally hiked the trail with to see how the experience directed the events of their lives. These guys shared a thousand of my most formative miles and it's time to re-connect. Since Cool Breeze is deceased, Kunning Kat is missing and Moonshine, despite his dream visitation, is adamantly opposed to this mid-life return to the trail, this would seem an impossible task. But, lucky for me, I know that an impossible task is just a task not yet completed. Thanks, Appalachian Trail!

I hope you'll support me in my 2,000-mile quest for mid-life meaning.