FOR A MOMENT – HOME
I step out of the massive yellow limousine that chauffeurs me home each day. Not home exactly, but half a mile from it. The exhaust clears quickly with the afternoon breeze and is immediately supplanted by the sweet fragrant aroma that could only exist in the mixing bowl of a tranquil valley.
Hay sways in one field while horses mow down another, penned in by old wooden fences with a rustic patina that appeals to my sense of past-life nostalgia. I’m fifteen. How can I feel so enraptured by a moment deeply tied to emotions I have yet to understand myself?
Verdant shag carpets upholster the surrounding mountains. Evergreen and ever still, it is a texture I would always covet to express and lack the ability furthermore. Music. My expression is music. I sing songs of the moment as my feet transport me along a gravel shoulder, inches from a meandering road with sparse traffic.
Mind on sabbatical, my body pilots the way home from memory while revery takes me away. I’m a king. My castle is the mountain itself and my kingdom spans its ridges. Snow still plays peek-a-boo on the peak, even though September has punished me with its heat all day.
I arrive at my door, looking back only briefly. The landscape waves goodbye through the gentle motion of an apple tree’s bough. I’m home. Here is my home. No other place could ever be what this place is to me. | WCP