A Moment

They say there are those mornings, those special mornings, where to grab the moon from the sky all you must do is get your fingers wrapped around it. The early sun glints off the smokestacks of the old mill, warms the frozen blood of fragrant pines, and paints the mountain peaks with broad strokes of gold. Soon you stand at the summit, take a deep breath and find yourself synchronized with light and earth.

With your overstimulated head about to explode in a flurry of thoughts and equations you drop into the rugged south side of the mountain. When you move there is the sound of your board accompanied by war whoops. When you stop there is nothing but the sound of you panting. The symphony continues into the dampened acoustics of the treeline, changing tune for the ten minute slopestyle track back home.

Yesterday morning I decided, nay realized, that I am never going home, that everything I need is tucked away in the billions of acres of freedom that surround Farewell Bend. Every instant I am out there I am simultaneously deconstructed and rebuilt, with molecules from the ether seeping between my bones each time. The body fortifies itself from the marrow on outwards, imperceptible at first, growing strong from mere exposure to the silent primeval forces.

They say you can never really hold the moon, so much as you can fool it into your grasp for a single moment. What they never tell you, however, is how long that moment really feels.