I’m sitting on the beach in Todos Santos, Mexico, where the ocean is loud and wild, folding over itself in reckless barrels of sandy water, fizzing salty poems at the dunes. It’s too rough to swim, but behind the ferocious folds sucking on the shoreline is the big blue—flat, calm, and occasionally crackling with the blow of a whale, or the flap of a ray. I’m crying because I think this is what happiness feels like. I’ve done it. I’ve driven 6000 kilometres down to magical Baja California, to the end of a slice of arid land, to show myself I can be in the middle of everything I want. That I can be happy. That my life is a workable work of art. That I have the ability to unfold all things. That beauty is my birthright. That I can. But most importantly, that I will.

Every morning of the 10-day drive begins with anxious dread. What will the road be like? Snowy? Icy? Windy? What wild beasts might jump out at my car and maim themselves at our peril? Stevie, my dog and copilot, curls up in his cushy front-seat bed, too short to watch the road, groaning every few minutes as he tries to find a comfortable sleeping position after each bump or brake revives him. We always start with a short walk, a harried moment to gather my senses and let him relieve himself, then we drive. On our very first morning in Calgary, it’s too dark to walk comfortably up the steep hill we’ve become regulars on. All my anxious mind can see in the moonlit blackness are giant, glowing eyes attached to predators ready to eat my small, 17-pound fluffball as a snack. I turn us around at the top of the hill, girding myself in icy footprints, feverishly watching the car parked below us like the prey we are. The white metal box gleams in the streetlight, stuffed with my most valued stuffs as I ready myself to scream at any two-legged enemies lurking in the dark who might steal it.

But no coyotes or other thieves intervene and we get into the car with all the things—American cash, Canadian passport, new Beis luggage, insurance papers for Canada, US, and Mexico, a small cooler my brother Taylor gave me, a spare tire that’s been filled, weeks worth of Stevie’s expensive food, Uggs, summer sandals, a grey James Perse cashmere sweater, a fruit bowl from South Africa my friend Gisela gave me 20 years ago in Japan, a scented candle, Celine sunglasses (3 pairs), Nexus card, blankets, a new two-hundred-dollar pillow, and many other things I probably won’t need but I might need to have.

We hit the highway and I press ‘play’. Tom Petty’s “Time to Move On” starts and we wait for the sun to rise over the prairie line.