I don’t usually lay on the grass at night, staring at the twinkling stars above. I don’t usually hum to the swishing and swooshing of the grass as the night breeze blows through their foliage. I don’t usually spend my time grounding in nature, thinking about ideas from pioneers of the Transcendentalist movement. I don’t usually have the moon, like a warm blanket, drape over me as I drift off to sleep. 

But on the night of the 26th of November, the night before the assignment was due, I decided, against all odds, to give this thing a try. It was, to me, nothing more than a pending, yet perplexing, homework assignment that beckoned for completion. 

As I stepped into the dark night, I was greeted by a gust of wind that almost dissolved my resolve but I was desperate –the clock was obviously ticking against me. With my hands pushed frantically into my coat pocket, a futile attempt to ward off the cold, I headed for the grass that lay just beneath the veranda. I noticed it glistening, swaying with the howling wind, and like an alluring sound, my ears were soon filled with its quiet rustling.

So there I lay, wondering if the peace I was to experience was underway. For a moment, my mind was filled with a thousand wandering thoughts, restlessness creeped upon me and I began to lose feeling in my toes. Somewhere in there, as I shook out the frostbites, I remembered the paper that had staled in my pocket. It held the quote that would replace those restless thoughts:

“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.” – Henry David Thoreau

Soon, I noticed the moon. The moon that held more questions than it did answers; its mysterious light shone the brightest in the middle of that night, as if it could no longer accept the fact that I’d never cared for it. It wanted me to notice it, and I did, along with all the life that came with it. Suddenly, I could only hear the cries of the crickets in the background, the raspy songs of midnight thrushes in my backyard, and the aimless swaying of the trees that succumbed to the violent winds –and all my thoughts washed away. 

That night, while the moon became my comfort and I basked shamelessly in its pompous glory, I was overcome by an epiphany, or better yet, a question: If I wasn’t so focused on completing an assignment, how long would it have taken me to look up?