“Everyone has a supremely low moment somewhere along the AT, usually when the urge to quit the trail becomes almost overpowering. The irony of my moment was that I wanted to get back on the trail and didn't know how. I hadn't lost just Katz, my boon companion, but my whole sense of connectedness to the trail. I had lost my momentum, my feeling of purpose. In the most literal way I needed to find my feet again.”

“I searched for my own heartand long after I had lost my wayin the days trailing past with their foliagein the aloof sky blue with distanceI thought I'd find my heartwhere I'd kept your eyes two brown butterfliesand I saw the swallows swoopand shadows starlings”

“I love going out of my way, beyond what I know, and finding my way back a few extra miles, by another trail, with a compass that argues with the map…nights alone in motels in remote western towns where I know no one and no one I know knows where I am, nights with strange paintings and floral spreads and cable television that furnish a reprieve from my own biography, when in Benjamin’s terms, I have lost myself though I know where I am. Moments when I say to myself as feet or car clear a crest or round a bend, I have never seen this place before. Times when some architectural detail on vista that has escaped me these many years says to me that I never did know where I was, even when I was home.”

“I don’t want to be in pain anymore. I want to be done, to be left unburdened and naked, to tear the hurt off my body like layers of clothes. At the end of the trail I stop and bend forward, hands on my knees, to catch my breath. I’m not healed, but for this moment, I’m better.”

“I could feel my blood just starting to boil, like when I’d lost my car keys and I knew they were around somewhere close, but I couldn’t find them anyway, and I wanted to scream.”

“That was . . .” I trailed off trying to find the proper adjective.“Long overdue?”“Long overdue? You’re the one who got skittish when I mentioned how I felt and backed away when we almost kissed.”“You call me on all my crap, don’t you?” He laughed throwing his head back. “That’s one of the things I love about you,” he said. His fingersskimmed up my shoulders until they cradled my neck and my whole body tingling.”