Standing on the ridge, looking down across the valley, there was a sense of being both tiny and part of something enormous.

I felt the familiar, uplifting, soaring of my soul over the stream below. The water was crowded by a wandering boundary of trees to barely a glimmer of reflected sunrise. I could see it, because I knew it was there, from the memory of fishing and cleaning.

Home was within sight now, too.

Soon, there’d be a cooking fire to light. Pack to unload. Settling in. And then, when the sun set, the reds and golds and oranges perfectly visible from the cavern opening, there would be sitting. Notes of the journey and return home would be written in the journal that was currently in the pack.

It would be sooner, once I caught my breath, hitched my pack and stepped forward.