The Arc of Leaving

There is a specific height where the ground ceases to be a place and becomes merely a memory. When we are small, we believe that rising is the same as escaping. We climb, we reach, we tilt our heads toward the fading light, convinced that the higher we go, the more of the world we will finally understand. But the air grows thin. The voices below turn into a hum, then a silence. We are suspended in the space between what we know and what we fear. It is a lonely geometry, this circle that returns us to where we started, yet leaves us changed. We look back not because we want to return, but because we are checking to see if the earth is still there, waiting for our descent. Does the horizon look different when you are no longer standing upon it?

José J. Rivera-Negrón has captured this stillness in his image titled Evening Fair Ride. It is a quiet reminder of the distance we keep even when we are close to the sky. Will you look up tonight?