Walk Softly was my trail name on the Appalachian Trail, a thru-hike I completed in 2004 after graduating high school. The trek was one of the greatest experiences of my life, and I learned more about myself in those six months than I had in the preceding nineteen years. My journals from that walk are some of the most motivated, sincere writing I’ve ever produced, and in writing them I discovered the distinction between writing because you have to write – because the world is pouring a story over top of you, and your cup is overflowing in the stream – and simply spitting in that same cup and trying to pass it off as something good. I did a lot of spitting when I was younger. There is always a story to find, though. Even in a desert, there is water at the root of everything. And if you can be content with a drip and have the patience to catch and hold each drop, you may be shown something very beautiful.  Different from the former waterfall, but beautiful. This blog is an effort to catch those drops.  Even from the confines of a math graduate program, they come.