Mountain Bike

I have always gone to nature to heal. It’s instinct. Nature is acceptance. Balance. Beauty. When I cycle long distances in wild places, I feel boundless joy. I become a body of joy.

At first, my bike trips were a means of escape. When I was twenty-one, I walked out of my dead-end strip club job and cycled alone around Iceland. A couple of years later, I left the sex industry for good and cycled 3,500 miles south from Alaska. I cycled through anger, through loss, through feelings I could not articulate. I crossed mountains and found freedom. I became a part of nature and this becoming healed me.

There is so much joy in motion. When you move the body, you move the self. You grow and you change and it never stops. I understand now that motion is not a type of escape. It’s a type of presence.

This year I decided to walk 1,100 miles on The Florida Trail. Right now I’m sitting on a wooden bridge over a stream, typing this essay into my phone. Mile 897. My fingers are sooty from last night’s campfire. There’s a cool breeze, the sound of leaves rustling, birdsong.

A few hundred miles back, I passed a billboard that said in big block letters, “Everyone is dying.” At first I thought it was an artist’s statement — a dazzling reminder of our fleeting existence. Then I walked closer and realized it was a warning about opioid addiction. Everyone is dying, but so many of us are dying while we’re still alive.