What Next?

Well, I made it. Somewhere in the ballpark of 2800 miles from the border of Canada to the border of Mexico (don’t tell anyone, but I totally jumped the fence and danced around on the Mexican side). So, now what?

First of all: I’m giving myself a few self-care days. I’m at my folks’ place gearing up to spend the holiday weekend with my dad’s side of the family. As I’ve mentioned before, reintegration to the so-called “real world” is a disorienting process. I’m enjoying the novelty of modern plumbing, not having to drink water from cow troughs and pluck thorns from my feet, eating real food etc, but this world of ours is hectic to the point of insanity; it’ll take a little while to readjust and come to terms with navigating civilized life. 

Anyway – I’ll be throwing some photos up on Instagram and uploading galleries to the Hike the Divide Facebook page over the next few days. Starting next week I’m going to be (finally) catching up on blog pieces, both section recaps and From the Front Lines pieces. I’ll likely have another interview with Philip Randazzo of the YIELD Mastermind Podcast soon. Come January, I’ll be back in Portland working on the film(s) with Brave Alice Productions – we’ll be grinding to release some inspiring eye candy for y’all as soon as we can manage.

If you contributed to the Go Fund Me campaign (which is ongoing! We have the means to get started/put out one mini-documentary but to complete the project we’ll have to raise more funds), hang tight: if you were supposed to receive a postcard but haven’t yet, keep an eye on your mailbox – it’ll be there soon. For those of you who are supposed to receive a print, I suggest hanging tight until all my photos are uploaded before you make your decision. I’ll be reaching out to you about this in the near future!

So, for now, I wish you a happy autumn. There’s a lot of craziness going on right now – keep your head up. There are no insurmountable problems. I encourage you to take up what philosopher Jonathan Lear calls “radical hope.”

Novelist and MIT professor Junot Diaz says: “…all the fighting in the world will not help us if we do not also hope... “What makes this hope radical,” Lear writes, “is that it is directed toward a future goodness that transcends the current ability to understand what it is.” Radical hope is not so much something you have but something you practice; it demands flexibility, openness, and what Lear describes as “imaginative excellence.” Radical hope is our best weapon against despair, even when despair seems justifiable; it makes the survival of the end of your world possible. Only radical hope could have imagined people like us into existence. And I believe that it will help us create a better, more loving future."

Don’t forget – we are the people we’ve been waiting for, y otro mundo es posible. 

-Bard