Greet the Dawn

[Selina Taylor]

    Selina stuck her bare feet into the ice cold water and sighed in quiet appreciation for being in the mountains. The creek was a black silk ribbon flowing around her ankles in the pre-dawn hours and she felt like time should stop and hold this moment forever. All was dark and the noises of the night were just starting to die down in preparation for the coming day. The fallen tree that she’d found lying across the creek was a perfect perch and she straightened her back and focused on her breathing.


    Selina hadn’t had the time to meditate like this in a quite a while. Sure, she did her usual twenty minutes at morning and at night within her dorm room, but this was different. She could be out here for hours and not notice the time passing except for the change in the sun’s position. Since it was Sunday, she had no classes, and she was looking forward to the time alone.
Her favorite pair of dark blue stretch jeans and a black tank top helped her to blend into the dark, and she felt at peace for the first time in days.

    The backs of her hands rested easily on her knees and her eyes slowly closed. She didn’t expect anybody to be out here at this hour, so she sifted through her thoughts, considering and then letting go of each idea that crossed her mind. Soon her breath was the only thing she was cognizant of, and she was so deep in her meditation that she was completely unaware of the world around her.

[Nolan MacKenzie]

Montana had pretty crap weather most of the time. In that respect, Nolan much preferred California. He could drive an hour south of his mom's place in San Francisco and be at the beach, and if it was between March and September, odds were it was sunny and over 70. Here, in Montana, not so much. It'd taken him quite a few winters to get used to just how bitterly cold it got at Bellefonte. He'd acclimated by now, of course, but it had been quite the process.

The one thing he did love about Montana was how amazingly quiet it was. San Francisco was a lovely city, and his dad's place in San Diego was great too, but the backwoods terrain around Kalispell ranked among his favorite places.

Of course, "quiet" to Nolan meant something different than to most people. There were still plenty of things to hear. For instance, about twenty yards to his left, a squirrel was looking for nuts. And at around two-o-clock in a tree, a blue jay was shrieking at the morning.

He'd pulled an all-nighter the Friday before, and so by the time Saturday rolled around he'd been so tired he'd passed out at 5:43 PM. Now, Sunday morning, he felt amazing. He'd gotten more sleep last night than he had in weeks, and he'd woken up feeling unbelievably refreshed.

Erika had mentioned hiking the other day, and that'd stuck. And so Nolan, bored out of his mind before dawn on a Sunday morning, had ventured into the woods, going where his feet took him. After a bit, he heard rushing water and a deer in the distance and, if he concentrated, the sound of slow breathing. He saw Selina a few moments later.

"Morning!"

[Selina Taylor]

    Selina hadn’t felt this calm in ages. Being able to just relax without having to worry about anything was heavenly. The cold water swirling around her toes kept her relatively grounded and the feeling of the cool breeze caressing her skin felt refreshing. The corners of her lips were upturned in the smallest smile, but she didn’t even notice. Selina could remain here forever.


    She was startled to suddenly hear the voice of a human being and almost fell off of her perch and into the water before she steadied herself and regained her balance. She turned and faced the boy who’d called out and raised a hand in a brief wave, “Good morning,” she replied with a half-smile. She certainly hadn’t been expecting this, but he seemed genial enough. Selina turned her body to face him, now straddling the fallen tree and studied him in interest, “What brings you out this way?” she asked in curiosity.


    Because of how calm she’d felt previously, Selina was much more amiable than she usually was when meeting strangers. She was feeling far too peaceful to work up the energy to turn hostile. Selina glanced up at the sky and noticed it was slightly lighter than it had been before, but it was still too early for most of the population to be up… not that she minded really.

[Nolan MacKenzie]

"The quiet," he said. While he'd been somewhat hyper a few moments ago, he was starting to calm down, no doubt due to the influence of her slow breathing and content-sounding voice.

"Well. Not that it's quiet, exactly." Nolan looked towards the blue jay he'd heard earlier, but it was out of sight. The creek might have been calm to normal ears, but to him it was a rushing, wild force of nature. He could hear the eddies pushing against rocks, hear the sound of fish pushing their way through the stream, even the sound of a tongue lapping at its water somewhere upstream. Sound carried in water much farther than in air, and he could hear it all. It was wonderful. "Just different kinds of noises, I guess."

"What about you?"

[Selina Taylor]

    Selina smiled at him and nodded her agreement, “Same. Nature’s always had a calming effect on me,” she admitted. “Besides, it’s been a while since I’ve taken the time to come all the way out here,” she added as she leaned back against a limb that stood perpendicular to the water, her entire body still relaxed from earlier.


    Selina glanced out over the creek and smiled, “Sometimes the school gets a bit confining after a while,” she admitted, “and I just need some time to breathe.” Perhaps she found it to be healing as well, but she wouldn’t admit that to a stranger. Selina often found herself missing the sense of close community she’d had with her family in Santiago. Maria and Katerina were both living in Nevada, which was farther from Selina than they’d ever been before. Selina knew that independence was a part of college, but part of her longed for the ability to be around the people who accepted and loved her for who she was.

    
When Selina started feeling that homesick, she could often come out here and forget her troubles for a while. For some reason isolation in the wilderness was less lonely than being isolated in a crowd of people.