Where the Best Secrets Lie

Here is an essay I wrote for english about nature. I hope you like it!

I’ve heard before that nature is a place without people, but really who can define nature? Nature is what surrounds us and for myself Sunday afternoon at graduation party, filled with streamers and people, lots of people, I found myself in nature.  My cousins are 5 and 3, and so for them, adventure can be found anywhere and everywhere. We watched a lion run through the forest of the laundry room and touched the tusks of an elephant seated upon the couch. The rug jumped out at us and became lush greenery ready to be laid upon; a place to sit and dream about what lies beyond. For us reality was just a figment of our imagination and what really mattered was what we could create beyond our own existence.

As night closed in on us we made our way up through the stairs but really we were trekking through the rough terrain of the mountains. I held my 3 year old cousin in my arms because “up” is the only place he desires to be at the moment. I felt as though I was in the Sound of Music but this reference was lost upon the unknowing heads of the youngsters. They had so much to learn. I knew that this was my chance to instill in them the fact that life does not have to be boring and although it won’t be a cake walk either, they need to live life to the fullest. Yes I know they are but 3 and 5, they need to know that their imagination should be at work throughout the day...If only everyone had the mind and soul of a child.

We continued on our journey, reaching the peak of the mountain and walked strait, past the hallways, past the bedrooms, slid open the screen and we made our way to the balcony (which was really the overhanging of a cave). We looked down in the wildness that was the backyard and saw what we had accomplished. We had made it past all of the people and dreamed up our own Narnia. A nature of our own. And as the people talked and deserts where sampled, we danced because that’s what our heart desired. On Sunday at around 6:57, I was nature and nature was me.