Cynthia's journey begins at age twenty-two as she is flunking out of art school in New Brunswick, Canada. She knows how to paint but she doesn't yet know herself. After a delayed graduation she travels to Arizona, then Denali National Park where her love of nature deepens. At summer's end, she hitchhikes to New Mexico, then lives off-grid in a school bus, travels as a tree-planter in the South, and raises two boys as a single mother. She returns to school, begins to teach, then moves to Oregon. Through it all she ponders: how does one discover their voice as an artist?