Marcher Arrant

Walking the earth, writing graffiti, getting into adventures Instagram=Marcher.Arrant

[marcherarrant]

Hey Everyone! I have some art for sale! I am living in Portugal, trying to get on my feet without a work visa. These pieces are from my most recent walk across the Algarve, Portugal. They are done on the maps I used for the walk. Times are tough, so I really appreciate the support! If interested, you can read a further description of the pieces and buy them at my shop at marcherarrant.bigcartel.com. I am documenting the walk on my Instagram account @marcher.arrant. Thank you all!

[marcherarrant]

I haven't posted on here for awhile because ever time I try it says "oops, something went wrong, try again.' and if I forget to copy and paste what I wrote then I lose everything I wrote. Anyways. I'm leaving for Europe in 3 days. It's insane that I'm going on this trip. I'm extremely physically and mentally ill. It's so brave if people to admit they need help and getting help. Im so bad, I feel like I'm at the end of my life. I'm too tired to even talk to people or maintain a persona. Standing in the line at the grocery store is a chore, I feel weak and shaky and wish I could lay on the ground right there. The slightest inconvenience makes me want to give up entirely. All this technology shit just makes me want to give up, it's too complex for me. I want to love life, I'm trying. But I have to admit to myself that I hate this world, this society. It feels like a nightmare to me. Bravo to people who get help, you are so strong. I've been doing the same methods, the same compulsive behavior over and over thinking that it's going to change me, but it never does. I always think that I did not try the methods hard enough, but tomorrow I will and everything will be good. It never is. I need new methods, a new paradigm. But I'm too addicted to my routine. It's so brave how people humble themselves and go into the unknown and accept other people's advice and accept reality and actually change. I've been addicted to many things but denial is my greatest addiction and the one that will kill me. I can't believe I'm going to travel in this state. It's suicidal. I know what I should do. I should take the money I've saved and go see a doctor, a psychologist, go into a rehab. But I don't have the strength to spend all my money on medical things to arrive completely broke with a bunch of horrifying diagnoses and have to admit reality and give up all my denial and defense mechanisms. I don't think I could survive it. So I'll go on a walk instead like always, imagine myself on a quest, a grand adventure. Christ, I hope I'm not in this state when arrive in France. Maybe some transformation will happen there. I need a paradigm shift, some kind of miracle. They say you have to go through hell to get to heaven. I'm certainly in hell. But maybe I'm not going through it, I'm just sitting in it. If I ever get out of this state I am in and lead a healthy life then I will truly believe in miracles.

[marcherarrant]

Yo!!! My spirits are soaring once again! Cant thank you all enough for the positivity, it really helped! A couple of days ago I did a 10 hour day and had to set up my tent in the pouring rain. It rained all night and was cold and water was coming into my tent. It was miserable! When I woke up it was still raging and I had to break camp in the cold rain. Then I walked all day in the rain and I was cold and wet the whole day. I finially got to a road where I got a shuttle into Erwin, Tennessee to meet up with a homie, the best dude ever! I'm staying at his place and it's so cozy and nice being able to reorganize myself and resupply. Me and the homie are going to walk the parts of the trail together in the area. I feel so renewed to be able to take a shower and do laundry and spend time with a super friendly person! Life is the best right now! #Appalachiantrail #thruhike #marcherarrant #hash9 #graffiti (at Johnson City, Tennessee) https://www.instagram.com/p/CMpxkgysgpm/?igshid=1uct9xk4k7aqg

[marcherarrant]

Day 3 baby!!! Its going so perfect!!! The homie @bones.2.pick is the best road dog! He hikes fast though, damn! But we abide by hyoh protocol so we meet up later if he feels like going fast. We are at our first hostel (@atchostel )and it's perfect! Such good vibes and the people here are passionate about what they do. Highly recommend this place! Meals are included and laundry and it's just super nice and clean and people are super chill and friendly! All the hikers I've met on the trail have been super cool too! Everything is just going so good! I knew I would be in good walking shape because I am always walking, always, so I knew my legs and feet would be 100. But before the trip I never trained walking with my kit so I thought I might be outta shape in terms of having a bag on. Everyone tells me my bag is big and heavy but it feels so lite to me and has not been hard to carry at all and I'm thinking wow what a great surprise that it's not an issue at all. Then I had an aha moment hahaha. Although I did not train with the kit for the trail I realized that everyday I was walking before the trail I was carrying a huge camping bag full of paint with two big bottles of water and food hahaha. That thing has to weigh at least 50 pounds hahahaha, and I was walking with it like 5 hours a day down the tracks hahaha, so I was unknowingly training for the trail and not even thinking about it hahaha. On another note, when we were staying at our first shelter at Springer Mountain I heard a helicopter and gun shots at night. I figured the gun shots were a hunter. But then I heard a machine gun!!! It sounded like a war was going on!!! I asked the homie the next morning if he heard it all and he didnt! I thought I had just hallucinated it all hahaha. The next day we found a sign saying they were doing military training in the area and that we might see people in camouflage and to 'not engage' hahaha. Then we came across a military truck hahaha. I still had not put two and two together from what I had heard the night before hahaha. Then we met some Appalachian trail volunteers who told us about the military and that we might here machine guns hahaha.

[marcherarrant]

Starting off perfect! We made it past Springer mountain the first day and I'm pretty happy about that. I feel great! I'm figuring out the best way to pack my bag every time I stop. I'm very happy because I did not forget anything! And I have plenty of food that I like! It's a bit cold and it's only 6pm and it's hard to get motivated to do anything but lay in the sleeping bag! I think I will read! I want to write or make art but I dont want to use will power, it's too cold for that! I'm very happy that I'm am super prepared for the cold, I feel great! I weighed my bag at the entrance and it was 40 pounds hahaha, super heavy! But I have paint, stickers, 4 liters of water and too much food. It didnt feel too heavy so that's all that matters! Starting the walk with @bones.2.pick ! Thanks to the homie @_disco.p for dropping us off at the trailhead!

[marcherarrant]

"On this day, March 1st 2021, Marcher Arrant sets off for his biggest walk yet...a thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail."Here we go!!! This is so surreal,  I can't believe this is happening! I'm excited and nervous! This is so much more than a walk. Every walk I do is. It is my way of life, my art, my therapy,  my source of meaning, ect. But this walk in particular is something even more. This walk is the crossing over of a threshold. It is a self created rite of passage, a new beginning. As a Walker my I embrace a philosophy of becoming, of constant movement, of no beginning or ending, constant flux. That being said, there are moments of being, moments when flowers bloom. I'm in love with shows and movies in which you see people become their destiny. It's perhaps a banal example but the first show that comes to mind is Better Call Saul. I watched that with such joy seeing him become the sleazy lawyer he was meant to become. I was destined to become this person I have always dreamt myself to be, Marcher Arrant. This walk is where I become him fully.  I made a real life flag as a symbol of that. I was born a Walker. I began walking more than those around me when I was in 6th or 7th grade. And my love for it has continually grown through the years and there have been countless thresholds I've crossed that have been pivotal in marking me for my destiny. It was around middle school or early high school that I walked from my house to downtown Columbus,  a 4 hour walk. I later walked there and back. Years later I walked the tracks from Boulder, Colorado to Denver, a twelve hour walk. I ended up doing that walk a lot. Eventually I walked to Denver and back, walking for more than 24 hours without stopping. Then I started doing aimless 24 hour walks all the time. I moved to Paris. From there I did my first long distance walk, a month-long  trip from Paris to Rocessvelles, Spain. That opened up a whole new door. I then walked the entire length of every street in Paris. And on and on and on... so many walks. In Paris,  maybe 10 years ago now, thanks to my homie Curve (@thecurvazoid, forever grateful) I began toying with graff, came up with my character and name. I later moved to Spain and did many more walks.  For most of my life my walking was something personal that I did not share with anyone. I thought it romantic, beautiful and pure that my art was just for me.  But then I had a health scare and it was then I got the urge to share what I do online. I felt I had something unique to offer the world and I did not want to die without sharing it.  I am glad I did because doing so gave my life so much more meaning.  I then got into making art and books and fell in love with that.  2 years ago I decided that before I did another big walk that I would catch my art up to my life and make books and art from all my previous walks so that when I did the next walk I could focus for the first time on making art and a book while I was doing the walk instead of going back and doing it after the fact. I finished all the art and books for my past walks. This is the first walk where everything comes together for the first time, the walk, the art, the book, the graffiti. Also over the last two years I decided to set up for myself work so that I will always have a job no matter where in the world I am so that I can walk with no pause. I began an online English teaching business. It was a long road to be able to get enough students so that I could make a living from it.  I have finally gotten to the point where I am fully booked. I begin my dream life now, a sustainable life where through art and teaching English I can walk forever and take care of myself.  My dream is to spend my life walking the world, alternating from long distance walks to living in new cities and fully exploring those, walking every street and painting and making art.  This is a dream come true, my idiosyncratic idea of the perfect life, a life I will never tire of, one that suits who I am in the most perfect way.  I am in love with the writer Nietzsche who philosophy was about making your life a work of art, living in a way that ties together all the aspects of you into a beautiful whole. The work I have done over the past few years with the walking, the graffiti, the English teaching, the art and books, the travel and how they have all tied together at this moment, with this walk, I have accomplished this goal of making my life a work of art and tying all the aspects of my life into a harmony. No matter what happens in my life now, I can die happy having accomplished this. For me, it is a sort of intangible form of art, my greatest accomplishment.  It is so hard to figure out who you are and what you want when there is no precursor to it. I am so fucking proud of myself for believing in my strange vision despite the fact that until very recently it never gave me a cent, never did anything to advance my life or do anything for me besides the meaning it gave to me. It is so hard to keep doing something that seems to everyone around you, to society, to be utterly useless. You have to be brave and trust your vision. 

The hardest part of any walk for me is getting to the starting point.  I grew up pretty poor.  When you grow up poor, at least for me, everything seems so out of reach.  You have this unconscious feeling that you would never be able to do so many things.  This is great because when you do those things your mind is just blown and you  are so amazed and in disbelief and you don’t take it for granted in the slightest.  I never in a million years thought I would be able to live in another country.  I thought that was something rich people do which is totally untrue but that is just the kind of mentality you have when you grow up poor.  When I moved to Europe it was surreal. Every single day, for the ten years I lived there, I was in total awe that I was there. I did not have a single boring day. Every single day I could not believe I lived there and that did not lessen a single minute bit the entire time I lived there.  It is the same way I feel about doing long distance walks. I was so amazed by the idea of the Appalachian Trail when I was a kid. But I thought only rich people could do it.  The fact that I am setting out to do it today is absolutely surreal. I am in total disbelief that I am doing it. I keep getting scared that somehow something is going to happen so that I can’t do it. I don’t take it for granted in the slightest that I get to do it.  It literally feels like a miracle to me. And there are so many to thank for it.  First I want to thank my mom and step dad who let me live at their house rent free while I worked on starting my online English teaching business and making barely any money.  I never could have started my business without them and saved the money I have.  I thank my grandma, my dad and step mom, my sisters, my brother and all my family who have helped me so much. Thank you so so so much to the people who have bought art, books, stickers from me over the past couple years, people who have given me donations, people who bought shirts, pins ect. I never could have done this walk without that support and I am eternally grateful and forever in your debt. I take none of that for granted. Thank you for all the kind words, messages and comments, you have no idea how much that has helped me to keep on. You have no idea. No fucking idea. I could kiss every last one of you. These past two years have been two of the hardest years of my life. For the past year I worked 7 days a week, waking up at 4:30am. For various reasons I went through some horrendous depression, so many suicidal thoughts. So many times I wanted to take the money I saved for this walk and check myself into a mental hospital. All the positive words from people really helped me to keep on. Thank you so much.  Thank you to my crew, the Abe Lincoln Brigade, Impeach, Hank, and Alamo. I’m so grateful and honored to be in a crew with such legends, people who I’ve always idolized. Thanks again to Curve (@thecurvazoid) for giving me one of the greatest gifts I’ve ever been given, the gift of getting me creating art.  And thank you to Art Primo (@artprimo ) for sponsoring this walk with art supplies. Not only does this help financially but the fact that such a legendary company believes in what I do enough to give me supplies is such an honor and so fucking encouraging. 

There are two new things that I am doing with this walk. One, is that I will be making art with the guidebook pages as I do the walk. I have already made art with maps from my walks, but I did it after I did the walk. This is the first time I will be making art as I am actually doing the walk. I am so in love with this idea. And I love that when I send the art it will be from whatever town I am in along the walk. I think that makes the envelope itself kinda a piece of art. Selling art along the way will also make it so I spend the money for my trip at a slower rate and hopefully not end totally broke like I usually do. The second new thing I will be doing is making it so people can follow my walk online. I have a gps device that also tracks me and sends that information to a website. I think that’s kinda fun and cool. It also makes it so if you want to meet up and you see I’m near you you can reach out. A lot of people have offered me a place to stay or just meet up and I am so disorganized that It makes it hard to remember all the people and where they live. Hopefully this helps to make meeting up possible. You can follow my walk at share.garmin.com/marcherarrant. Again, thank you all for everything!

[marcherarrant]

"It was a sad day when Marcher Arrant realized that he couldn't solve all his problems by walking." I found a treasure! I was walking an abandoned track and found some old boxcars living in the middle of nowhere! God I love walking the tracks in the middle of the country, there is this constant sense that that you might find something something special. There is never a moment that things are boring, it's just a constant anticipation of what awaits around the next bend. I could do this forever!

[marcherarrant]

"No greater peace did Marcher Arrant find than when he was walking abandoned railroad tracks."

[marcherarrant]

Wow, one of the most dramatic transformations I've ever had. I was dealing with a lot of resentments from a recent breakup. Of course a walk was the solution. I decided to walk my ex's name into the city and spend that time thinking about all the good things about her and the many good times we had, and then make a collage from the walk. By the end of the walk my resentments were gone! It was truly magical, a truely dramatic shift happened. It has been a week since the walk and the resentments are still gone. This blows my mind because I had been having so many obsessive thoughts before this and just going over and over things in my head non stop and uncontrollably and trying all kinds of mental practices to stop it but nothing would. This really makes me want to look into art therapy, something I've heard about for years.

[marcherarrant]

Bottles for donations for my Appalachian Trail walk which I set out for on March 1st! I'm starting the trip out with a new friend and I'm super stoked about that! I always have a bit of anxiety starting off on a big walk. Starting off with someone will be a big comfort and is also a new experience for me. For the bottles I just ask for a minimum of shipping cost which is 15 dollars in the USA and 30 dollars everywhere else. Any extra will be greatly appreciated and much needed but please dont be bashful if you are broke, I want everyone to be able to afford my art. DM me if interested. Thank you so much!!!

[marcherarrant]

"Marcher Arrant is a battleground where Apollo and Dionysus fight an never ending war."

[marcherarrant]

"Marcher Arrant found the Circle to be the most loathsome of shapes, for it was the one he spent the most time in. He had dreams of a line, a line which went forever into new places and adventures."

"Marcher Arrant goes from one "this is the worst period of my life" after another, ad nauseam. "

[marcherarrant]

My train track walking project brings me perfect joy. I could walk the tracks and paint forever and never get sick of it. And thankfully the tracks are infinite.

"Don't feed the mania Marcher Arrant, you are a Walker, your proper place is with feet on the earth."

[marcherarrant]

"The Marcher Arrant of the sorrowful face." A month from tomorrow I leave for the Appalachian Trail!

[marcherarrant]

"Just know Marcher Arrant that if you do it you will have gone against the only thing you've ever stood for, keeping on, and your life will have been for naught."

[marcherarrant]

"Marcher Arrant no longer believes there is an "it" to find, but he keeps on nonetheless. "

[marcherarrant]

All shirts have been shipped! I cant thank you all enough, you dont know how much help it helps! I leave for the Appalachian Trail in a month!!! I just spent a small fortune on gear. I'm stepping my game up with this walk in terms of preparation. I'll actually be using a tent for once! I've always just cowboy camped with a bivy which was great back when I was an alcoholic. The GR11 trail was the first I had done sober and the bugs bothered me so much not going to sleep drunk. I've never used a stove before either but now that I dont drink I need some kind of comforts and pleasures to keep moral, so that will be food now! Man, I cant believe this trip is about to happen!!! It has been years in the making! I've been teaching English 7 days a week for months now. I cant wait to be free!!! Thankfully I have a lot of things to do before I leave, otherwise this next month would go by so slow!!! If anyone else wants a shirt you can follow the link here. Tell me the size and color (pink, purple, green or blue) in the message field when you order. I will be making these up until I set off. Thank you!!!