sitting in my office watching a video 2.5 years old. . we were all very alive and yet the thought never crossed my mind, our mind, that this was the best it would ever be. to think that was to betray the very life that swelled inside us. we did know that there would never be another time quite like this. that this was unique. this was special. at an intersection of happenstance and gargantuan effort. Yosemite. Like the valley itself. The waters were high that summer. The waterfall we hiked beside ended in a pure and violent explosion. The waters a couple years later became low enough to jump in; exhilarating, but a little sad, to think that this was spot where we might have been beaten to smithereens by the glory of millions of gallons of water made deadly by gravity. It would be death by gravity, but a good one. All babies are born, even in the face of death. Maybe that’s why no one felt very afraid to crouch at the slippery borders of the mist trail. Staring down precipices and up slate walls as if we were all beholding some deeply sacred birth. maybe it was our own. coming into the world, together. misty afterbirth drying on our communally tan skin. if only we could stay as close as the UV rays that penetrated our skin. I guess the sunburns of your youth stick with you though. Whispering of cancer at a later date. the melancholy sticks to us forever. like UV to our melanin.