To Be Loved By Sunshine

I could lay here blissfully for the rest of my life. The smell of dirt and grass filled my nostrils. A light breeze running through my hair. I could feel it through my eyelashes. Lifting away the hardships of the past several years. I breathed it all in, I breathed in life for the first time since I was a child. Remembering what it was that I loved about the countryside. Away from the desks and computers, the people, the constant clatter of machinery slaving away.

The sun kissed my cheeks, it's protective gaze erasing my thoughts with it's warmth. Self-destruction gone in an instant upon laying down. I was no longer just a cog, I was back with nature. Cut off from the living. No cellphone, no social media, no internet screaming to me about the end of the world. Maybe if we all took more time off and spent time just laying in the dirt we wouldn't be so hellbent on destroying it.

I don't want to go back, there's nothing for me there. Here I have my little cabin, a small creek to fish in and gather fresh clean water. A garden would flourish in this climate, stable and kind. The ground more fertile than I ever was. I could put in endless hours, and reap what I sowed. To see, feel, and taste the literal fruits of my labor. Unlike the endless grind of modern life.

Unrewarding, unable to properly live and enjoy life. My life is given to a soul sucking vacuum for forty hours a week. It took my soul bit by bit and sold it to others, and I saw no return. The investment of my mind, and body. Suffering from never ending depression, hoping it could just come to an end. And never once yielding results. False promises of happiness and security.

I was wanting the wrong thing to end. I hadn't realized my life hadn't started yet. It wasn't until I packed it all up in my car, quit my job and drove north. North to where my Grandfather had build this cabin, where he lived most of his life. I was hundreds of miles from civilization, in the middle of America. I had abandoned the idea of capitalism, society. Left it all behind with no second thoughts.

I had no family left, they had all passed away. The medical system is harshest on the elderly and poor. The hospital bills were more scary than the stage four that took my mom's life. Rationing insulin, counting the months for as long as my brother possibly could. There is only so long you can continue when you get laid off and insurance from a new job wouldn't kick in for six months. The state refused to provide insurance or help. The loss of both of them strangled my depressed father, pulling him off a bridge into the highway for local transit to carry him to the afterlife.

The sun had become my savior, it followed me everywhere and also lead me around this unknown environment. It's ever watchful gaze shone in through the windows to gently nudge me awake. It's warmth cured any feeling of discomfort. It glistened across the top of the water, it's dancing reveled the fish swimming in the clear water. It provided the trees and grass, and flowers a source to bloom. It bounced off the mountains in the distance. Making every view, every sight perfect. It's warmth wrapped around me at all hours of the day. A love that I had never experienced before, unconditional and true.

There was no control, no abuse. No forcing me into situations I never asked for. It was never condescending, or hateful. I never felt resentment or discontent. It didn't ask anything of me, just reminded me constantly that I was loved. That I was okay, I could breath easy. I didn't need to return to society, I didn't need to bring the toxicity of humanity back into my life.

There was nothing left for me there. Fake friends, and people who wear masks everyday of their lives. I was broken when I had come here. I feel so whole for the first time since I was a child. It was a lot like childhood. There wasn't any stress, what I did day to day was decided by my imagination. I ran joyfully through the fields. I sat comfortably on the rocks at the edge of the creek, a makeshift fishing rod in my hands and my legs in shin deep in the cool rejuvenating water.

A fresh breath of sunshine brought back memories of my Grandfather. I always thought of him as a strange man. Not fond of technology, uncaring for the modern achievements of man. He would often tell me, our tree has grown so tall not only can we not feel our roots, we can't comprehend their existence. When you are broken, when you are alone. Seek out your roots.

I always thought it was a strange thought of an old man who wasn't completely there. My parents would always laugh him off. Perhaps they had never grasped at what he meant. It wasn't until recently I was able to decipher what he had meant. This was a life I could never have imagined I would ever lead. And now I can't imagine why I would return.

Returning to a concrete jungle. A world not laid out by Gods but by the inhabitants of nature. To regulate and control everything to the most minute detail. With the sole outcome, distancing ourselves from nature. Turning our body's into clockwork. A living machine, a community of clocks. Cogs that tick the same exact way at the same exact time everyday. If anything clogs the cog, the clock dies. The machine doesn't notice, it simply replaces that clock. A clock with fresh and young cogs that can still push through the worst that the world has to offer. To carry it all on their backs without a single complaint. Greed was what birthed the lions in the jungle. Their never ending hunger caused them to rip out the necks of those beneath them. And then everyone cheered.

That was what irked me most. Everyone would always cheer. The record numbers, the soaring market. And everyone would cheer. The complacency, always achieved with a single lie. You are apart of this, our victory is yours. Don't mind the stab wound, your bleeding is essential to us thriving. It is the water that makes us grow. And everyone would cheer.

I made my escape, I escaped to the sunshine. I will never look back to the prison we built up, trying to free ourselves from natures heartlessness. That's just what we told ourselves though, that nature was heartless. I understand differently, it has love. Even the harshest weather is love. I've been here a few weeks, and the rain and thunder has only come down it's hardest once. It gave me a backdrop of sound. Setting a mood and reminding me that how small I was. I stayed inside, wrapped in a blanket. I wrote poetry, and created paintings. I told myself stories and I smiled.

I smiled like I was right now. Under the blissful gaze of the sun. The smile from my childhood had returned, grinning from ear to ear. I never knew how much I had missed this feeling. Something I had taken for granted and forgotten. For the first time in my life, I was alive.