Oh little dog, you of eighteen miles and then eighteen more, I relate to your refusal to move further, having turned the wrong way and walked into the endless East myself, but I later found you on the reclaimed trellis bridge high above the tumbling river just as I found myself making friends with the banded-eyed chipmunks and the slinking black slugs, as you and I both dropped our expectations. We walked six and a half miles today on a hike misfire, my foot has stopped working and one of my shoulders cracks when I breathe, but in the end I returned feeling surprisingly expansive and accomplished and touched by the experience of just letting myself be.