pb

such a perfect, lush, full, green, still evening. fireflies by the thousands against the backdrop of colonial homes and vines choking everything with their slow fingers. large, orange, full moon rising over the trees across the river on this the longest day of the year, the summer solstice...and one lonesome boy letting it all wash over him like a tide of the purest deep green sea.

all of this filled me to brimming with a sort of sad happiness, and overwhelming sense of mortality in the face of such transient, lurid life.

i hugged my knees and sat in the grass near a playground of rapidly tiring children, sat in the middle of a field silently glowing with fireflies as the day and the year began to wind down. i was intensely shaken, almost in tears and smiling at being alive.

i will miss Old Town Alexandria. held close in me the rest of my days, i'll always be thankful for the quiet months i spent so alive in this beautiful place.