The rocking of the boat is more noticeable now, the sound of the water louder. Maybe it’s just that I’ve stopped paddling. That I’m thinking about it. Everything feels off. The boat dips, and my eyes whip open, my body sliding to my right with barely enough time to balance myself. Alongside me, my paddle slides into the water, hitting the metal with a clank as it tips overboard. I didn’t pack an extra paddle and I can’t just leave it behind—there’s no getting back upstream without it—so I use my hand to slow the boat down and when I’m over a shallow spot I put a foot over the edge. It’s so shallow the canoe bottoms out on the rocks.

Grabbing the bow, I turn the boat toward a sandy spot on the shore, a little C-shaped crescent cut into the trees. My paddle is floating to my right, coasting toward shore, and I scoop it up and toss it back into the canoe. The bank is sandy, and I pull the front of my boat up onto the shore, far enough that it can’t get pulled back out by the river. No one is going to steal my canoe—if they’re out here, they already have one.

My backpack is slung over my shoulder in a quick motion and I’m headed into the woods, ready to put pencil to paper, to capture everything around me. I want to finish the sketches in my pad—the ones I started on family car trips, and buses to away games, and in classes that didn’t hold my interest. I want to finish them all, while I still can. You’re being so fucking melodramatic. Ellis’s voice is in my head, and I know it’s true, that I’m having a breakdown or something, but I don’t care. I don’t think wandering around in the woods and paddling down the river and drawing shit is the worst thing I could do. I’m not out throwing bricks through the windows of everyone with 20/20 vision, or egging my eye doctor’s house, or something. I’m creating fucking art. And yes, I’m doing it in the middle of nowhere. So sue me, Ellis.

In front of me, the sandy shore stretches out and upward, and I duck under a branch as I make my way up, eager to see where this unexpected, sandy road will lead me tonight.