I never had curtains on my windows — and still prefer not to. I like to wake with the sun and fall asleep with the stars. As a child, I assumed this was normal: that everyone saw the explosive sunrises to the east and the occasional shooting star from bed, that everyone lived with an unobstructed view of the horizon. It never occurred to me that people lived in subdivisions, neighbors just a stone’s throw away, the mountains distant and fleeting in their alpenglow. Nor did I realize that waking at three in the morning, saddling horses in the dark, and watching the horizon emerge in the faintest morning light was something unique to my experience. Only as I grew older and set forth into the world did I understand how rare my experience was.

Leaving for college in the rainy Pacific Northwest marked my first big, independent adventure. I lived in a dorm room with my best friend, who I thought was weird for liking to sleep with the blinds closed. The only view from my room was grass that was green year-round and constantly watered despite the ever-present rain, and one of the campus’ main sidewalks that lead to the dining hall. Over time, I grew accustomed to my new, contained world, watching the people below our window move like a colony of ants, each with a purpose, each in a hurry to live life. Most of my classes were in the humanities building, flanked by towering trees that shed pinecones and etched an unpredictable outline against the sky — an outline reminiscent of the horizon but fragmented and inconsistent.

Yet something was missing, an aching in my chest that wasn’t quite homesickness but something close. One afternoon, on a walk down to the Puget Sound, I noticed the horizon between a low bank of clouds and the glassy ocean. It clicked. I had been missing the horizon — hidden among the wise, sky-scraping trees and obscured by my square, cookie-cutter bedroom. I felt enclosed, unmoored, lost without my 360 degrees of endless sky. But as I sat there, absorbing the view, I realized the horizon had never left me. It was ingrained in me, waiting behind my eyelids, as vivid as if I were standing beneath it. Now, it had simply reshaped itself into treetops and coastlines, unpredictable yet constant.

For the next few summers, I worked as a fly-fishing guide in Alaska. Each season, I grew more attuned to the intricate rhythms of the ecosystem. Millions of salmon carried out their ancestral pilgrimage into the veins of Bristol Bay, navigating rivers and lakes carved over millennia by the ceaseless push and pull of ice, water, and time. Their journey dictated the movements of brown bears, who followed the miles-long lines of fish like a roadmap to survival. Each level of the food chain fell into place, from scavengers feasting on leftovers to birds of prey swooping down, trying their luck against the river’s relentless currents.

Here, I reunited with the horizon from the right seat of a DeHavilland Beaver. Under the wings of the floatplane, the tundra unfolded — rivers snaking through the land, fluid and intricate, shaped by the weather born of the horizon itself. The Brooks and Aleutian Ranges scraped the sky, their jagged peaks freckled with active and dormant volcanoes. The Bering Sea completed the full circle, a boundary both vast and tangible.

Between guide seasons in Alaska, I traveled farther south than ever before, to central Patagonian Argentina. The howling winds were constant, sometimes blowing so hard it was comical, threatening to knock me off my feet. Yet, I found comfort in their force, recognizing their role in shaping the land just as much as the vast rivers and lakes. Some days, the lakes seemed poised to reclaim the land they had spent centuries carving inch by inch. But it was this very dynamic that gave the lakes their shape; without the wind stirring whitecaps that beat on the shoreline day after day, they would spill over, consuming the earth that contained them. Water and wind existed in a symbiotic relationship — each defining the other.

Yet again, the horizon took a new shape. It was no longer just a visual anchor but a paradox — both a limit and a force, grounding and yet always in motion. The shoreline became a different kind of horizon, a boundary that both confined and expanded.

And then, returning home, it became clear: the horizon is not just a line; but rather, a zig-zagging roadmap on how to perceive the world. It had proven to be a beacon with which I could relate my environment — from the northern reaches of Alaska to the southern expanses of Argentina. Wherever I could see the horizon or a new perception of it, I had a roadmap home. A place where the sun touches twice daily. A place where the wind redraws pathways. A stronghold for both grounding and new beginnings. The horizon was not just a view — it was a way of being, a presence that shaped my world. And through all of this I learned to dissolve the illusion of control, revealing the interconnectedness of all things. I am part of the cumulus clouds rising from the mountains, bringing rain to the prairies, nourishing ecosystems. I exist within the raindrops that dapple the tops of wise old trees. I am part of the yearly migration of salmon that feeds the earth and animals. I am part of the howling winds that carry water and matter. The horizon is constant, yet through shifting weather, the rising and setting sun, and the undulating mountains, it teaches me that existence is anything but linear. It is grounding but not tethering, a framework that offers both structure and means for connection. A guide that leads me back home to myself.

This story was originally published in The Ranchlands Review, Edition 03: Lines.