Wide-Eyed and Unknowing

When We Take the Leap(s)

Recently an old photo popped up in my photo memories on Facebook (a website I mostly avoid for many reasons).

This is me in May of 2012. I was 31 years-old, had just finished Cheryl Strayed’s Wild, and, two years before this moment, had lost my mom to suicide.

In Wild, Cheryl Strayed writes about her adventures on the Pacific Crest Trail. The book ends in Oregon, at a bridge, where she seems to have found peace with her mother’s death and a new sense of confidence in herself. Many memoirs end this way. Editors encourage that neat little bow, and it’s oh so satisfying for a reader. We love that closure.

There I am, starting my own hike, wearing a baseball cap from one of my hotshot crews (so people on the trail could ask me about it and I could tell them how badass I was), my grandmother’s wedding ring on a silver chain, and a whistle I’d bought to scare away bears. I was terrified of bears after having fought fires in Alaska for a summer in forests teeming with black and brown bears.

I…