The air is so sweet, I try to fill my lungs with more than they can hold. I can smell the seemingly endless lines of trees. I can smell the just burned fields, blackened husks waiting to be tilled. I can smell the sweet flower whose name I still don't know, the one that makes the air taste like sweet sustenance. But, my lungs are too full already and can't hold anymore.
I walk from the landing to the first ballfield by moonlight. Breeze whips through the silent night. The big tree is to my right. The tree where I've played, where I've watched others cross the field and tried to guess where they're going, where I've whispered secrets in the night. I walk past.
Past the cricket pitch where I've played football and catch(tag) more than anything else. I walk past my friend's house, with solar light still glowing and sounds of a movie coming from within. Past the houses and unwashed clothes in buckets by the pond. Past tidy yards with raked sand and sleeping dogs. Past my friends already sleeping in their houses, though its Friday night, just past 10pm. I walk past that. Past the newly burned field, soon to be turned to a cassava farm. Past the candle-flies occasionally flickering like the glistening eye of a jaguar, or any other night time phantom I can imagine. Past the bats swooping past my face, feasting on the swarms of mosquitoes.
Finally, I stop. I'm in the middle of the big ball field. I raise my arms out wide, tilting my head back to the moon. Encircled by clouds, it is nothing short of magic. I am filled with the deep sense of love and belonging. This place, Wakapoa, this island of Massarie, is now my home moreso than the car filled, juniper lined streets in Colorado. Deep past my bones, in the place I hope my soul resides, gratitude spills out. I know this place. And I love it. I never thought two years of service would be over. Now that the time is nearly upon me, I'm holding on with both hands, not ready to breathe my last breath of this air, to wave goodbye to the family I wish I could take with me.
Not yet, I tell myself under the silent moonlight. I can't leave yet. And, if, perhaps, I do leave in July, I will try to be ready for that. All things must end, in order for new things to begin. Leaving 2 years ago, shrouded in doubt and fears, I was scared of the future but certain I was making the right choice. Now, I find myself in the same situation, but the future is less of a choice, and more the next logical step before I face another choice between comfort and growth. But, it won't be tonight. No future will be made or broken tonight. This won't be the last time I stand here, on the same field where I scored my first goal. This won't be my last night, and for that I am endlessly grateful. But, this night is a reminder of the approaching end. I can't outrun it, but maybe I can breathe a little deeper, and hope the memories will last.
