A week in the densely populated east coast. Commerce and anonymous humans dominate.

There are epic lines at the Starbucks, unlike any I’ve ever seen.

I reach for something to hold while on crowded buses and trains that have no empty seats. This is what it is like when 9 million people share a small island.

Restlessness builds inside me.

My feet ache to feel dirt beneath them, a trail stretching out in front of me, through a meadow filled with tall, yellow grass.

Climbing higher, until I am in a snow filled cirque, the outline of mountain ridges circling me,
bringing me home.

The emptiness of wilderness, where I can breathe and truly be alive.