Word of the Year 2020: Build 7: Trail Building

City of Rocks State Park, New Mexico. January 2013.

People who undertake long journeys fascinate and inspire me. I've shared some folks' long journeys here and below:

1. Long Journeys: Movies, Part 1
2. Long Journeys: Movies, Part 2
3. Icy Journeys
4. Movies: Famous American Trails
5. Cycling Across America
6. Rootless: Long Walk: "This Wild Call From Inside Me"
7. Long Journeys: The River ... And a Sidebar on Journeywomen
8. Long Journeys: Tracks, About a Woman's Walk Across Western Australia

Why do trails inspire me so? Well, there's the wanderlust, of course, and the curiosity. What lies over there, wherever "over there" is.

But more than that, there is the pushing of boundaries, overcoming fear, solving problems, and surviving hardships. The accomplishment.

In the context of this year's word, my focus today is on building a trail.

An important age-related milestone looms.

Building a sustainable, real-life trail requires the designer and builder to acknowledge the terrain, the surface composition, the climate, and how all of these interact with the trail user's (i.e., my) physical, cognitive, and emotional capabilities now and in the future.

As you likely gathered from other Build posts this year, the age thing is on my mind.

I kinda have an idea of what I want my future aged life looks like.

But I'm thinking about, imagining, and designing what my trail will look like between the Rootless Here and the Rooted There.

If I visualize a long trail such as the Appalachian Trail, there are sections, each with different geographic and climate features. I can divvy up my through hike into sections, too:

1. Money
2. Health
3. Relationships
4. Service and activism
5. Creative life
6. Rootless goals I want to achieve

Imagining and designing these trail sections is a worthy endeavor for the rest of this year.

Castlewood State Park, Missouri. April 2018.