Midnight's Story

Although this is your first time in a citrus grove at dusk, you can't help but feel this distinctly familiar feeling. It must be the scent; a fresh, uplifting floral with both a familiar citrus heart and an earthy warmth that you sense equally by your nose and somewhere deep in your body. "I must have been a Queen who bathed in neroli blossoms in a former life," you muse to yourself as you weave randomly between the stout, knotted trees. Suddenly, you slip on a ripe orange that fell beneath a tree, and although you are pulled down to the ground and feel the wet grass in your hair and the warm earth beneath your body, you are not at all hurt and laugh so hard that tears roll down your face. You have been reminded to slow down, to enjoy the stillness of the evening, to celebrate youthful joy as it comes and to take a deep breath. You look up at the branches overhead, heavy with fragrant fruit, and just beyond, watch the night sky appear, star by star.