Summit
August 30, 2019
I am crying at the top of Mount Harkness
For Grandpa. For Mom and Dad.
For me.
I can see 360 degrees around me.
I can feel just as many things.
One year ago.
I dove to the bottom of the ocean.
And as I clutched a rock
there in the turbid waters at the seafloor
I said to myself
“I shall make my home here
and settle with the sands of the abyss.”
Shrouded in darkness,
my rock upon my chest,
I fell asleep
content to never again reach a mountaintop
or point to Orion’s Belt,
or feel the grass tickle my skin.
I woke up just four weeks ago.
The ridges of my rock
still imprinted over my heart.
Darkness no longer welcomed me home.
The rush of the currents sat me upright.
It was time.
I could have left my rock behind,
but it no longer weighed me down.
As I still held it tight in my hands,
I started kicking.
I navigated through the isolating waters
for what felt like years.
But when I reached the surface
and swam to shore
and felt the deepest breath
swell in my lungs
I set my rock down beside me.
I let the sun dry the saltwater
slinging to my skin
and I let my feet carry me
to the fields of grass that tickle my skin
to the meadows I can point to Orion’s Belt
and to the mountaintops where the saltwater
flows free.
- Nell, Berkeley, Yellow Hats
