By sprinting with fail-safe double-knotted shoes from the two-car garage of my childhood suburban home, I would leap down the front hill, cross the street, and drop, heels first, down the steep grade behind Billy’s house. Here was the entrance to my shaded two-valleyed realm. Guarded by the likes of Cherry on the near slope and Eastern Hemlock on the far, I would proceed fretless to greet the twin creeks and their crawdaddies. No matter the frequency of the visit, I would progress with the habitual mission of exploration and would always find something undiscovered, far from earshot of expired dinner calls before the return trek home.

Decade two of life brought the focus on self and on girls. It brought college, five hours away. I became uprooted and ungrounded by seasons that existed solely to provide humidity, color, cold, or allergies, as my mind failed to fully wrap itself around all things global.

Three years early, my third decade of life brings me full-circle to that which is local. And to that which is small and also infinitely immense.