In 2018, I blissfully and briefly fled the constraints of societal bounds and hiked hundreds of miles through the landscape of the American West on the Pacific Crest Trail.

Equipped with a full backpack and an isolated consciousness, my flimsy, temporal body traversed a vast, enduring ground propelling me forward, rising and falling with the horizon. My blistered and calloused feet repeatedly rooting and lifting; colliding against the trail’s surface. Our bodies moved in unison, the Earth’s rigid flesh churning beneath my soft soles, scarring and healing; eroding and rebuilding.

As turbulent as the rushing falls of snow melt, a fluid feeling; I was uncaged.