Can I convince the person about whom I'm crazy to be crazy about me? The short answer is no. The long answer is no.

And every last one of us can do better than give up.

It was my life — like all lives, mysterious and irrevocable and sacred. So very close, so very present, so very belonging to me. How wild it was, to let it be.

The universe, I'd learned, was never, ever kidding. It would take whatever it wanted and it would never give it back.

I write to find what I have to say. I edit to figure out how to say it right.

You can't replicate walking 94 days through the wilderness by yourself with a really heavy pack until you do it.

I was amazed that what I needed to survive could be carried on my back. And, most surprising of all, that I could carry it.