“I have this feeling, deep in my gut, that I am going to find the answers to my questions out there, in the mountains and in the desert, and I believe I will recognize what it is I am searching for when I see it…”

“I felt something green and fragile and small sprout with in me as I hiked through the snow that day. Perhaps I had planted a tiny seed in the soil of my heart on the summit of Springer; perhaps when my fingertips had brushed the metal placard marking the start of a journey yet inconceivable to me, my heart, emboldened by the impossibility of what I had set out to do, dared to whisper its intention to the Universe…”

“It was October 31st, and I was shivering, alone, in Greenwall Shelter, south of where the Appalachian Trail split from the Long Trail... I had come out here to process my sobriety and all I could process was the cold, miserable aloneness I was currently enduring”

“I think the hardest part about staring into the unknown, is remaining present for every uncomfortable moment of it, and taking it one day at a time—or one minute at a time when the day feels too long…”

“ I opened the crushed bag of potato chips that flew with me to Santiago and sighed, shoving one into my mouth and gazing around, I began to notice hoards of people who appeared to be missing the bottom halves of their faces; in place of their mouths, all I saw was white.”