How would God respond to making a mistake? Would planets collide or mountains slide into the sea? Or would the ledger of all life simply remain out kilter until a series of small events forced that ledger back into balance again? It's probably the l...
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August 9, 1:04AM
on top of the Falls Road hill
Baltimore, MD
I felt good after the game. Hopeful. And my hopefulness carried me to the top of the highest point in Baltimore. Well actually, it might be only one of the highest points, but it's a place that I've always wondered about. Honestly, though, it turned out to be nothing special. It's just a hill near my old elementary school and my school bus went by here every day. And for all those years, I imagined different worlds at the top of this hill like jungle thickets and grassy plains. Or an impenetrable tangle of wisteria vines that you seem to find everywhere all over Baltimore. But climbing hills can be such a strange experience, Buddy. Especially in the dark.
From the ground, most hills look like you can see the top. But that's almost never true when the hill is steep, because the tops of those hills are usually flatter than you expect them to be. That's how the hill by my old school was, but I didn't know that until I started climbing.
Just before midnight, I parked my car in the lot of an abandoned gas station and began my march up the steep hill. Even in the darkness, it was obvious that the hill was steep. But I didn't realize that I'd have to crawl on my hands and knees for much of the trip. If I hadn't, I'm sure I would have tumbled all the way back down the hill.
It took almost a half hour to get to the top and I gasped when I got up there. That was partly because I was out of breath, but mostly it was because I found out that there were houses at the top of the hill. Most of them were dark, but a few still had porch lights burning. There were even several small streets with tiny streetlights. In some of the houses, you could make out the silhouettes of people getting ready for bed. It was an amazing sight because you can't see any of this from the ground. It was so unexpected that I wanted to stay longer. After seeing some birds finding space inside bushes or on the ends of tree branches, I decided that I was no different than them. Even though this might have been someone's backyard, I would just blend into the background like I was another bird.
Before trying to sleep, I laid on the ground for a while and watched the shadows of the trees moving with the wind. It surprised me to see any shadows at all because there was no moon out. Or almost no moon. It was just one of those thin slivers of light that you're more likely to see during the day than at night. And then I began wondering about what shadows think about the night. I wondered if they're happy that humans are on Earth with all their house lights, porch lights, and streets lights. If you didn't have all that extra light, where would that leave the shadows on nights like this. You'd hardly ever see them and that seemed so sad.
Finally, I found a tangle of wisteria vines and I crawled inside. It protected me from the rain and I did my best to sleep until morning in my world hidden from the rest of the world.
⌂⌂⌂
When I woke up, it was still dark outside – darker than it should have been. During the night, I guess I pulled some leaves onto my body and over my eyes. The first thing I really remember was the smell of those leaves. The green ones had a freshness that I had forgotten. It's that deep, dark, strong August smell. The smell that fools you into thinking that summer will never end. The other leaves were various shades of brown and gave off assorted scents of decay. I pressed them against my face and realized (for the first time) that I had survived my trip to Baltimore.
