Sometime after the summer of 2011 I was leaning against the wall at Vermillion having my first and so far only extended conversation with Whitney F.T. We talked about performance ethnography and mediation and secular pilgrimage and travel-as-research and research-as-travel: I told her about my recent failed attempt to hike the entire length of the Pacific Crest Trail and she told me that someday she hoped to cycle across Europe.

Years later, Whitney F.T gets on a plane with her bike.



My decision to walk the trail had been, in part, a means to rationalize a recent abortion [my 3rd] and to lose the weight--i.e., overwhelming sense of alienation--gained during the early stages of pregnancy. At the time I believed hysterectomy was my only other option.

(but is the weight of a uterus equal to the weight of 3 [now 4] abortions? And if not/then: what do we do with the remainder?)

would her desire be fulfilled in a way directly proportionate to my disappointment?