After a week of exploring Zion and Bryce Canyon with my family , we drove 1,200 miles , almost all downhill , back home to Kansas City . With the Jeep safe in the garage , I stepped inside our modest split-level suburban home and was overcome with vertigo . I was hyper-aware of the space around me . It made me pause . The etches in the wood floors from moving furniture , the eggshell dimples on the painted stair spindles , the dust on the photo of our kids in Ouray two summers ago . It was all glittery-sharp and competing for my attention . Then the walls felt paper thin and temporary like I was in a massive tastefullydecorated refrigerator box . Standing inside , I sensed the looming ash tree in our backyard and the puffy cumulous clouds drifting lazily overhead and felt naked without the warm sun on my face . My eyes wanted to focus afar , past the constraining walls . I had become farsighted and was reaching for the greater world around me , outside my home . I had acclimated to the outdoors , gazing at entire mountains and vast skies , and was physiologically fighting the return to an enclosed “ normal life .” A parting embrace from nature , I suppose . I work in internet marketing , spending most of my time