Desert Solitaire

by Edward Abbey

We greet each other, sun and I, across the black void of ninety-three million miles.

A venturesome minority will always be eager to set off on their own, and no obstacles should be placed in their path; let them take risks, for Godsake, let them get lost, sunburnt, stranded, drowned, eaten by bears, buried alive under avalanches—that is the right and privilege of any free American.

Suppose we say that wilderness invokes nostalgia, a justified not merely sentimental nostalgia for the lost America our forefathers knew.

I crept back down. I began to cry. It was easy. All alone, I didn’t have to be brave.