I grew wings today and flew up into the sky. The sun kissed my face as I soared towards the few clouds dotting the great blueness. I laughed my delight to the stars and tasted wind on my tongue. I flew into the midst of a flock of geese and distracted them from their journey with a game of tag. We played together until the old gander called them to order and pointed their beaks southward again. I sat down to rest on a cloud and buried my face deep into the sweet wetness. It smelled clean, like newly washed dishes and felt like cool mist off a fountain when you’re dancing through in your clothes. After a few minutes the sun burned the cloud away and I fell toward the ground, faster than the fastest roller coaster. I flapped my great wings once, twice, slowed then stopped. And as I hung in sky like a small, dull star I looked down to the ground for the first time.

The land looked so big from up here. Once I had lived where the land was big. It rolled and dipped and grew trees until I couldn’t see the sky. I had loved that land, but then I had moved to where the land was still and it was the sky that was big. The sky filled my vision everywhere I looked; it was the defining view of my new world and I grew to love it. But now I was looking down at the land and from up here I found that it was beautiful.

From my place in the sky I could see all the different colors of the land and how they were put together with rivers and streams the seams in this magnificent quilt. Field sat next to field with roads between them like feuding children at a dinner table. Towns sprang from nowhere like an ambush and then stopped with no warning. I traced roads, lanes and highways with my eyes and saw the wondrous pictures they drew. From here in the sky I could see my home for the valley it was and I saw its place in the land. Where before it was all inconvenience and humid summers now I could see how pretty the valley was and how much importance it gave to the rest of the land.

I flapped slowly in the sky and thought. I started towards the ground, but stopped when I realized I wouldn’t be able to see it if I landed and walked along it. I flew some more through the air, but the ground was so pretty I couldn’t relish the sky like I had before. The wind whispered through my hair and the ground called my name and still I stayed where I was, my brow puckered and my heart restless.