+43° 39' 00", -71° 47' 41"

The wooded trail is muddy but passable. It is raining. It is an hour before nightfall, and I am running because I have to. Large rocks surrender their traction to lichens. I scamper over a ridge, crack the white noise of weather on terrain, and startle a small herd of deer. One is separated from the rest. The conifer leaves are deep and soft; the galloping is heavy and real.

+43° 38' 2", -71° 46' 5"

Morning begins where meaning is necessary. You bury four unopened cans of beer in the sand. These are not time capsules or philanthropy. This is not agriculture.

+42° 25' 52", -71° 25' 13"

If there is such a thing as terrible, such a fear as “worst” -- imagined, cultivated, or otherwise -- it must be this: to be loved by, and to love, a free, safe, healthy, complete, and happy family, but to be compelled to move away from them again and again.

+44° 8' 33", -71° 40' 56"

Coming from the south, the rocks are first, then the lakes and the juniper. As the day is kindled, wind tears at the open windows of your wagon, and you cross the 45th parallel. And again. And evening brings the smell of distant campfire wood. This is enough. Fast food will diminish nothing.

+42° 52' 18", -71° 17' 40"

You can get to Derry through Lowell and Concord. There is the North Bridge and Sleepy Hollow. There are the smokestacks and the wanderlust. There is the mending wall and the yellow wood. Hard taskmasters all, if you must know. Beloved as well.

+42° 26' 6", -71° 23' 39"

I am running and I have forgotten language. This is a well-worn railbed, and these woods are common. But the surface of the nearby slough is glassy black. It is poured stone. I am fortunate, I think. I am present.

+44° 2' 38", -71° 47' 31"

There are black flies. There is mist and silence and time. Valencia stole root beer and L’Hemisfèric from the banks of the Pemigewasset; who will take this away from me?

+45° 14' 22", -71° 11' 45"

This is a moose. This is authority. This is Neil Young at Thunder Bay. This is boundless and beginning. La vida no vale nada.