Your feet are suspended in the clear blue sky. You swing back and forward, soaring on your childhood play set. You’re way too old for this sort of kiddish glee, but you enjoy it anyway. The last green leaves float in the wind around you, remnants of a perfect summer. You spent all summer away from home, enjoying freedom and time with friends. Now you’ve returned, and the confusing whirlwind of school has resumed. Today is the first day in months you haven’t needed to do anything. You’re in your backyard now, your natural environment. Energy from a twelve-hour sleep courses throughout your swinging body. This must be what flying feels like. You jump off the swing, and for a second you are floating, free, alone, in the clear air. You inhale the crisp day, yellow-leaved autumn swirling around your suspended body. You land, hard ground sending you stumbling. You laugh your way over to a rock nearby. You’d forgotten how difficult it was to stick that landing. You sit down on the rock, muddy shoes against bright gray granite. From the rock, you can see the valley you love through a veil of branches, brown twigs against the distant trees. There is a dusting of snow still coloring the very top of the mountain in a coat of bluish white. You can’t wait to ski this winter. It’s almost Halloween, and soon you’ll get to traipse through the streets dressed in a silly costume, fooling around with your closest friends. Last weekend you spent at your friend’s lake house, and tomorrow you’ll leave on a family road trip. School, of course, is a tornado of events and homework, and this all leaves little time for relaxation. Life’s been busy lately. As much as you love the chaos of people, you enjoy these moments the most, alone in a crowded world.