A Winter's Night in Junior Year

Roots Growing From the Sky

It is illegal to be at a park once darkness falls. This is important. The illegality prevents most people from going to these places at night, allowing those who crave solitude and a remote environment to find a safe haven, one where the rest of the world is prevented from affecting their thoughts, their desires, and their entire being. Perhaps this is the reason why the parking lots of these places usually play host to one solitary car, of one solitary person who is trying to make sense of the world, and in turn make sense of their self.

One such person found herself to be in one of these places, right in the center of their world, but at the same time completely cut off from all the white noise of life which for weeks had been stifling her. She felt herself to be lost, experiencing one of the more intense identity crises that often are inflicted upon those of the generation. Over the past month she could feel herself slipping away from who she wanted to be in life, and everything that held meaning. The situation seemed to be approaching the point of no return, at which this stand still state of mind would become a permanent aspect of her identity, forever keeping her from finding a place of purpose and serenity. That is, until she parked her car, a huge mass of green in the shape of a mini van, and climbed onto the roof, viewing her surroundings from a slightly different perspective, which made all the difference in the world.

For a while she sat, letting the music that wafted out of her car windows to wash over her. The music notes intertwined with the smoke from her cigarette and resonated through the air. She tried to think of what she was doing wrong, although she really had known it all along. So, in fact, it was more of a peaceful confrontation with her self, one that had been begging to occur, but only needed the precise circumstances of solitude and freedom that came with sitting under the open sky.
The mood shifted, and she began to think not of what she was doing wrong, but what she could do to make things right. She wanted to be her self again, a person she hadn’t been in quite some time, but also one who she desperately wanted to be again. And for the first time in her life, she didn’t want to self actualize for the benefit of the people around her, but for the person that she knew was waiting inside her head to be heard, to be acknowledged and to be respected. This was the only way, she realized, to be completely happy, for everything else would fall into place accordingly with those she loved, if she first mended the fraying ties she had with this forgotten person.

She noted that the reason she was having difficulties being honest with all the people she cared about, was not because she was a dishonest person. It was, in fact, that she was not being honest with herself, so how could she possibly communicate with anyone without embedding lies into each word, both spoken and unspoken?

With this thought she turned her head to look up at the sky, an opaque canvas of clouds that cast a soft light upon the world, and against which the bare trees of winter were seen as a striking silhouette, their branches reaching up towards the heavens that were drawing her attention at this moment in time. Something about these trees caused her to lie down across the broad roof of the vessel, allowing her head to drape over the side slightly, so that her view of the world was inverted completely. The impact of this served almost as a welding torch of sorts, seeming to immediately mend the bridge that stretched between her current self, and the one that felt so familiar and safe to her. Everything changed. The only things she could see were the branches of the trees, which, in their inverted state, now looked like the ever entwining roots of an unseen orchard that she could almost imagine. This moment of pure realization and ecstasy moved her to thought, thoughts that only she could hear, for during this moment in time, she was the only person who mattered in the entire universe.

I am this. I am the sky, I am the earth, and I am the roots growing from the sky. I am me.

She sat up abruptly, once again changing her perspective, and slid in a ghostlike way from the top of her vehicle. Before she parted from this place of enchantment, she gazed upon her surroundings one final time, allowing this moment of unity to soak into every fiber of her being, and then proceeded to drive away, leaving the sanctuary vacant for the next lost soul that happened to come across it.