Wyoming liberates Ehrlich’s soul from the deadening confines of industrial civilization, and at once provides her with purpose and meaning in her otherwise empty life. She comes because she wants to lose herself in the uninhabited wilderness of Wyoming; she wants to ‘fill’ the void within her with the boundless land, hoping to ossify a numbness within, so that she will no longer have to think and feel. Instead, she finally feels alive, vulnerable …showed first 75 words of 478 total…

…showed last 75 words of 478 total…as if what we have, what we are, is not enough.” She writes that we build against space, and are therefore unable to recognize what is already there. Wyoming allows her find herself again and redefine her identity. Her return to the land, in the tradition of her forebearers who, by necessity, achieved a harmony with the land and all it represents, marks her life-affirming transformation that brings new meaning and purpose to her life.