Gift

The late October afternoon sun is gentle, knowing its power wanes but is still Everything. The mountainside limps from summer fires but every tree that survived stretches its branches taller now than before toward the skies. I stood on a log across the river, remembering a balanced weight somewhere at my core, remembering what it is to breathe - to truly breathe - when no one else can hear you. Up the river bank, a small school bus stands waiting, its signs painted over and the stop sign decommissioned, the inside a strange home in the wild. My phone lies silent, with no connection to the world except for the soft rumbling of the odd car through the forest.

I stepped out later, long after sunset when the warm Indian summer day had given way to approaching winter, to brush my teeth in the dark. A million stars wrapped every inch of my periphery, the night so black that the Milky Way looked dusty. I found myself waiting for a shooting star, but then I realized: I’ve already been given every wish I could ask for. I whispered my gratitude into the stillness instead, went inside to wrap myself in blankets and silence, and I knew.

I would never have known to ask for half of the gifts I’ve been given.