It is quiet here, and loud at the same time. Crickets chirp in chorus all around, the woods alive with their song. Other sounds that I don’t recognize – frogs maybe – join in, a cacophony of southwest Wisconsin nighttime sweet nothings.
The river itself drifts lazily by, almost silently, watching us dance around our fire from the inky blackness. It is easy in nature, slowly moving, shallow, warm to the touch. Gentle almost, but not.
There are river monsters in there, a friend tells me. I laugh.
The fire pops and crackles in time to the music that wafts around us, a mixture of lighthearted beats and catchy melodies. My friend throws something into the flames and they burst upward, a glittering inferno of technicolor rainbow. Food coloring, he says. It feels like magic.
We roast marshmallows and make s’mores without chocolate; “a couple hot boys coming up” one of us says each time a marshmallow burns. Get your hot boys. Some of us get mallow on our hands. Everyone laughs. Smoke circles in the darkness. Glow stick magic.
After a moment, I stand up, sand between my toes, sweatpants rolled up to pirate-length.
I dance away from the firelight, hands grooving in time to the music, body moving with the beat. The farther I wade into the darkness, the quieter and louder it becomes. Less music, more nature. Somehow still music in the purest sense possible, and in a way I recognize. I wander across the sand; it makes a weird squeaking noise beneath my bare feet that I do not like.
Finally, I sit and then lay. I look up, up, up and let myself be swept away by the stars. Confidently, they blaze away, a mosaic of diamonds strewn haphazardly across the heavens. The light seems to twist and sway in time with the music, catching on the horizon and hovering there, a pale green leftover reminiscent of daylight.
Or maybe the green is the hint of daybreak. I’m not sure. I don’t really care.
The sight of it all above me fills me with wonder and sadness at the same time, and I am not sure why that is either. Maybe because it is all so big. Maybe because I forget to look at it often enough. Maybe because even surrounded on all sides by people that you love and who love you back, it is so easy to still feel alone.
I breathe deeply, pulling in calm with the lung full of cool nighttime air.
When I return to the fire, a friend asks me if aliens came down now and offered to take me away to a magical place, would I go? And I say no.
I am happy where I am.
I am on exactly the path I want to be on.
I am enjoying seeing where this life will take me.
And so I remind myself, when you look up and are swept away by the largeness of the sky, remember where you are.