My Most Special Place

I have this special place to which I go whenever I feel the need to escape, to get away from the everyday, or just to rejuvenate my brain. It is a very special and private place, but I would like to share it with you now.

“Why,” you may ask? “Why do you want to share this very special, private place with me?”

Well, because I want to. And because I think you will enjoy it. And because, well, what the heck, I don’t think you will believe in it anyway. It is a pretty strange place after all. And well, I guess I just want validation. Validation from those of you who are not like me. Those of you who are normal, as I am not. Those of you who are content to live your lives with your feet firmly planted on the earth. On Terra. Good old Terra Firma. Solid, stolid.

“I pray for one last landing on the globe that gave me birth” .... (1)

My apologies, Heinlein. Maybe someday I will come back home. Home to earth with its fleecy skies and green hills. That is if there are any green hills left. If those of you who are normal have not destroyed what is left. What is left of the beauty of the earth. Destroyed it with your pollution and hatred and wars.

Yes. Good old Terra. Your HOME! Your home.

Your home, my prison.

My mind wants to soar free. To leap from galaxy to galaxy. To hear the Universe sing. And I can’t do that here.

So I go to my very special and private place, within the heart of the star. My star. Oh, I won’t tell you where it is, for it is my very own, private star. And it is many, many light years away.

And it is beautiful. Beautiful, with a wild and ancient beauty which could awe even you. Beautiful, with a power which could destroy you. And it is there that the wonders of the Universe unfold.

The planets swirl and dance in their primordial and never-ending dance. The crystal trees blow in the stellar wind. As I sit in the middle of the glowing hot star, I am bathed in its beauty and radiance. I am transformed to a glowing, liquid crystal butterfly. I soar past the crystal trees and out into the Universe, and I too dance with the planets. The sound of freedom roars in my ears. My soul is cleansed and renewed, and my spirit is refreshed. I drink from interstellar rivers. I drink from life.

And suddenly, I remember. I remember that it is here and only here, on this one planet in all the Universe, that the skies are fleecy, and the hills green. My eyes become misty when I think of those green hills, and that beautiful cerulean sky. And my heart yearns for home.

So I escape when I need to, then I return. To Terra. My home. My prison.

Maybe, just maybe, I am more normal than I thought I was.

(1) We pray for one last landing
On the globe that gave us birth
Let us rest our eyes on the fleecy skies
And the cool, green hills of Earth.

From "The Cool Green Hills of Earth, by Robert A. Heinlein