God speaks to each of us as (s)he makes us, then walks with us silently out of the night. These are the words we dimly hear: You, sent out beyond your recall, go to the limits of your longing. Embody me. Flare up like flame and make big shadows I can move in. Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final. Don’t let yourself lose me. Nearby is the country they call life. You will know it by its seriousness. Give me your hand.
Hitch-hiking is humbling, plain and simple. I used to feel awkward in this position; thumb out, hip cocked, chin up with a wide smile for passing drivers. Embarrassed and personally wounded by each rejection as cars sped past me.
This post first appeared on The Trek, which you can read here. July 16th I found myself on the floor of the Safeway in Leadville, Colorado, with my back pressed against a grotesquely large selection of various shampoos and sunscreens. I wasn’t thinking about how ridiculous or concerned I might appear to bystanders or Safeway […]
This post was first published on The Trek, which you can find here. The streets of Leadville were lined with houses painted in pastels of every shade imaginable. They all seemed to be slightly variable versions of the same small A-frame with funky geometric trims bordering the shutters and porches. Walking along the sidewalk, I […]
This post was first published on The Trek, which you can find here. July 13th Trails are an exotic and transient world where connections form quickly, burn brightly, and then abruptly extinguish. Sleeping beside a stranger, or a near stranger, usually isn’t very restful but there was something in Matt’s touch that I found disarming. […]
This post first appeared on The Trek, which you can read here. July 12th There is a state—a bodily, mental, and spiritual plane of existence—wherein absolution is achieved in endurance. Awareness tightens in a gyre of relentless focus. Begets a black hole, a pinprick through which all concerns must pass, reshaping themselves into essential forms: […]
This post first appeared on The Trek, which you can read here. This series is a retrospective on my 2020 Colorado Trail thru-hike. July 7th On the edge of the Green River, I slept more deeply than I had in ages, curled into dreams that bled into other dreams. Megan and I stowed our respective […]
Hitting the Trail This post first appeared on The Trek, which you can read here. This series is a retrospective on my 2020 Colorado Trail thru-hike. July 5th – Denver, CO to Trail I felt the thrill of heading to trail and beginning my thru-hike gathering in my limbs as we sped down the interstate […]
This post originally appeared on The Trek, which you can read here. Prologue In the summer of 2020, when the world was still at a stand-still in the early months of the pandemic, I walked from Denver to Durango along the 485 mile Colorado Trail. “Walked from Denver to Durango” is just five words and […]
The decommissioned firehouse at the end of Joseph Court is marked by an atmosphere of modest California charm and the slow simmer of creeping insanity. The firehouse itself blends unremarkably into the culdesac’s collection of low lying stucco motels and nondescript businesses. Cream colored whites and dreamsicle oranges evoke the arid serenity of the desert […]
IsabellaZHall 