The Unwinding of the Miracle - Julie Yip-Williams Page 0,15

I have of making this newest journey by myself.

Before I turned thirty-one I had set foot on each of the seven continents. Maybe I’m cheating, because I haven’t actually been to the country of Australia yet, but I have been to New Zealand, and I think New Zealand must be part of the continent of Australia. New Zealand/Australia was the last on my list. I hiked through the South Island for two weeks in November 2006, going from one cabin to the next (New Zealand has an elaborate, although still rustic, cabin system that obviates the need for camping—a good thing as far as I’m concerned), carrying my own gear on my back (with the exception of a few pounds that others who took pity on me shouldered for the duration of the trip). Josh and I had been dating six months by then, and within three months we would be engaged. Despite our romance, Josh did not go with me to New Zealand. I didn’t invite him and he didn’t ask to come.

Josh understands how possessive I am about my solitary travels, how jealously I guard my experiences of discovery. I almost always went alone (meaning without anyone I knew before the start of the trip), or as alone as possible given my own physical limitations. I went to New Zealand with a nonprofit called Wilderness Inquiry, dedicated to making the outdoors accessible to people with all kinds of disabilities. I went to South Africa on safari with the same outfit in 2004. I went to Antarctica in 2005 with a group based out of Connecticut that specializes in polar expeditions without any luxury or frills. To South America, Asia, and Europe from 1995 through 2004, I generally went either as part of a study-abroad program or as a solo backpacking adventure, with, as my trusty companions, my Lonely Planet guidebooks to tell me where to sleep and eat and what sites to visit, a magnifying glass for reading the small print on maps, and binoculars for all the street signs and plane and train announcements I couldn’t see.

I know there are those who think I was nuts for choosing to travel by myself and for actually liking it, even putting aside the fact of my limited vision; I know Josh must have thought this when he first met me. Eating breakfasts, lunches, and dinners of strange foods alone, wandering the great ruins of the world alone, getting lost in the growing darkness in a strange city in the hunt for that night’s accommodations alone, riding on boats, buses, trains, and planes alone, with no idea of whom I would encounter in the next moment or of the future that lay ahead. You see, traveling alone was my bliss. Some people turn to mind-altering substances. Some skydive. Some play with fire. Some make fancy wedding cakes. I chose to travel the world to chase euphoria. Beyond the bliss that came from beholding the divine and breathtaking beauty of our planet’s terrain and wildlife as well as the man-made creations of the geniuses who have come before, traveling alone to the seven continents represented a deeply personal journey that soothed and empowered my soul, quieting my anger and selfdoubt and imbuing my spirit with a sense of unparalleled strength and independence in a way that no one and nothing else ever could.

From the moment I was old enough to think about college, I dreamed of going far away. I ended up at Williams, a little college nestled in the Berkshires in western Massachusetts, famed for its vibrant fall foliage and notorious for its frigid winters. Williams was as far away from sunny Los Angeles as I could have imagined. Even as I cried that first night in the dorm, having said a tearful goodbye to my mother and sister, I still longed to branch out. I told myself that night that despite my homesickness, I would get over it and then study abroad in my junior year. I ended up studying Chinese in college and spent my junior year in Harbin (an industrial city in northeast China known for being the first stop on the trans-Siberian railroad into Russia) and then Beijing. That year, during the months off between semesters and the periodic weeklong breaks, I hopped on all manner of transportation to far-flung provinces, listening to crowing chickens as I rode down the Yangtze River and gaping in amused horror as the door fell off the minibus taking