peace

St. Andrew's Lake, Algonquin Park

it’s easy to question why we haul our belongings way out into the country.

things we need to survive bearing down on our shoulders.

imagined burdens replaced by more immediate but fulfilling ones.

easy to question why we tolerate the dehydrated dinners and the bad instant coffee.

end of another day, only campfire embers left.

step to the quiet, dark shore.

hear the sound of silence.

understand what it means for stars to twinkle, shimmering on the surface of the lake.

catch a shooting star as I glance up.

confirm that there really is a milky way.

hard not to believe that this moment, this place and that shooting star were waiting here just for me.

me, the lake and these stars.

it's in this moment that I remember why I came.