Sometimes we are one or the other. We can float or we drive forward with purpose. We don't always do which one of those is best for us at any given time. Am I a sardine or a jellyfish today? Is it purposeful and swift and not especially thinky? Or am I going to float but not react with any particular speed? They are both beautiful in their own right.

I started with friends and finished by myself. I soaked up as much as I could in the middle. My group was waiting for me at the finish line but each one of us was different by then. We were all changed by the miles covered. We had done it together but not beside each other.

And now, at the end of a trip where one foot was in the world of staged house showings and the other was in a trailer in a campground, we find ourselves on the other side of the valley from where we took that very first test trip. It was in that rental house we tested this life to see if it would work. We watched tremendous desert sunsets from a patio that faced the direction we are right now. We have gone so far - tens of thousands of miles - since then. We've crossed the valley and we are permanently changed for it.

Now I'm looking back to where we were and seeing the sun rise. New starts come from there. The earth evidently agrees.