Art isn't anecdote. It's the consciousness we bring to bear in our lives.

Going down (descending), I realized, was like taking hold of the loose strand of yard on a sweater you'd just spent hours knitting and pulling it until the entire sweater unraveled into a pile of string. Hiking the PCT was the maddening effort of knitting that sweater and unraveling it over and over again. As if everything gained was inevitably lost.

You have to pay your own electric bill. You have to be kind. You have to give it all you got. You have to find people who love you truly and love them back with the same truth. But that's all.

Every time I set foot on that trail, I feel grateful for the PCTA for doing the work it does to protect and preserve it

I’m a free spirit who never had the balls to be free.

He kissed me hard and I kissed him back harder, like it was the end of an era that had lasted all of my life.

The writing life doesn't move in a straight line. I've had successes and rejections all along the way, at every stage of my career, and I will continue to do so. Acceptances and rejections don't define me. They're both part of what it means to be a writer. My job is to simply keep doing the work.