I grew up in the Hudson Valley, a beautiful landscape of waterfalls, rolling hills, farmland, and amazing European-influenced cuisines, just a couple hours from NYC.
My dirty bare feet are curled beneath me on a mildly damp patio bench. The porch shelters me from the night storm, but exposes me just enough that my arms are sprinkled with water. In a nearby pond, a duet of rippling chirps is sung back and forth between two frogs. They are hidden by the blackened sky until it is split by purple lighting.
I wake to soft streams of light pouring through the window of my childhood bedroom, and the warmth of a small curled body that has taken liberty to climb under my covers while I slept. Feigning slumber, I peek one eye open to look out the slats of my window blinds, and glimpse a flurry of white fairies littering the crisp winter air. They settle on the lawn and patio like a coating of powdered sugar. I inhale with deep satisfaction. It’s Christmas morning.
By the end of today I will say to myself: “Why did I have to climb so high?” For my ambition will end in stinging blisters and aching arches as I descend this mountain; but for now, I ignore the warning voice that tells of temperance, and I rise. I rise to where the sky is wide as the sea, where birds fly below me and treetops—speckled with every shade of autumn—look like shrubbery. Here, I can see my mortality in the treacherous edge of the cliff, and my spirit in the hazy blue horizon. We are both fleeting, yet forever.
I let the nutty flavor of columbian coffee with a hint of cream and sugar linger on my tongue after I sip it. The mug containing it warms my hands as I take a happy step towards the scene. Dried, curled leaves drift silently toward the ground, light as feathers, in a delicate dance of death. They are remarkably fragile underfoot, crackling as I bend and break their thin frames, like the flakes of a croissant.
The serpent ravine bloats and shrinks in billowing pockets hollowed out of the rock by years of erosion, smooth as the sugar of a well-licked lollipop. Each bowl is filled with emerald green pools caked with foam. Clattering echoes bounce between them amid the distant roar of rushing waves as I peer over the treacherous rim.
