My friends and I know of this place. The small trail behind my house takes you there. I don’t think people wander there much, I’ve never seen anybody there. We found it by accident. We decided to camp out in my back yard on a starry summer night, no reason. My friends had gone to sleep. It was after midnight. I couldn’t sleep. It was one of those nights where I felt like I wasn’t afraid of anything; I wanted to experience new things. I wanted to truly come alive and have that feeling I get so rarely where I’m hopeful for the future and I want to feel infinite. I don’t know if that happens to other people or just me.
At first I only wanted to wander around the yard, maybe look at my mom’s vegetable garden she’s had ever since I was old enough to walk. Then I saw the trail. My house is set in a valley with rolling hills standing tall on all four sides. The trail led uphill. There were tall pines on either side of the winding dirt path, pines that had probably been there long enough to observe centuries of thunder storms and scorching summers and breathtaking, twinkling night skies. So I went.
I had nothing to lose feeling this way. I ventured up the path, not seeing where I was going or where the path was leading me. I wasn’t scared, nothing to lose. I couldn’t hear anything but my shoes touching ground and the warm breeze whispering to the trees. I’m not aware of how long it took to get to the top of the hill. After a while the pines grew fewer and the path faded from under me and I found myself stepping on grass. I was on a plain.
The flat land stretched out a few miles until it suddenly stopped – a cliff. The grass grew tall and wispy. The sky was no longer whispering to the trees but was calling to the earth, everything was moving at once. The grass pulled in one direction, then the next, dancing and twirling but softly. The sky seemed to want to harmonize, the billions of stars dazzling in response to the Earth.
I walked until I came to the edge. I walked until the land stopped existing and all that was left in front of me was mid-air. The sudden urge to jump, I was under the impression I could float. Instead I stared at the twinkling lights of the city skyline, much resembling the stars overhead. The city was busy at this hour but from miles away at the top of this hill, where sky meets earth, its lights shone dim and slow, it was at peace. And all the little suburbs and winding roads and all the houses with their little roofs and little people, they were asleep. And all things seemed insignificant compared to the feeling I had now, the feeling of belonging and existing and wanting to pursue. And to the bustling city, the small neighborhoods, the never ending sky and to all the complex lives people lead down there in that valley that seemed so big from down below – the earth is speaking.