Week Six Theme

Shaking and puttering as we bounced up the steep and unkempt mountain, the truck roared with exhaustion. This thick and wild terrain was barely a road, but to us it was one. We were driving very slowly, not by choice. The road was so rough that this was honestly as fast as we could go.
We were driving up Musquash Mountain. Musquash mountain was located right next to Musquash Lake, which was a lake that I grew up swimming in. Everyone had their camp on Musquash; everyone went fishing on Musquash. It had a pretty hefty trout and bass population. On top of the mountain was the only cell phone tower for a 35-mile radius, a few old buildings and an old fire tower. Local people were constantly going up this mountain during the summers. I don't really know what everyone did up there. Someone told me once it was the best place to watch thunder and lightning storms from; they said that it's almost like you could 'feel God's power'.
Today it was a beautiful August day, and we were just riding up the hill to take a ride.
It was a haggard path that traveled up a thick forested mountain.
The ride was a little long; long enough to make me feel motion sick because of the bumps we're hauling over.
Once we got to the top, we pulled into a flat clearing. The cell phone tower was intimidatingly tall. The fire tower was clearly very unsafe. Rusted, tall and visibly rickety, it'd be really unintelligent to climb it.
But we did.
One of my friends stayed at the bottom of the tower, "I ain't climbing that thing." They said, waving their hands.
The rest of us began the climb up. The stairs beneath our feet creaked and grumbled underneath us. Slowly, we all made our way up the tower.
The sky was as blue as it could be, and the clouds were white and happily puffy. As we climbed up, we all stopped every once and a while to observe our surroundings. The fire tower shook slightly at the weight of four grown people climbing up it, but once we rested for a few minutes, it stopped and we continued on, laughing with each other.
At the top of the tower was a small building. Carefully, we all climbed into the building.
Almost as if the entire world had been unveiled in front of my eyes. I could see for miles and miles. The bright green earth thick with trees met with the clear blue and white horizon. I saw green trees for miles. It was unlike anything else I had ever seen. It was never ending. Could I actually see the curve of the earth? It seemed that I could, but I was probably just convincing myself of this. Musquash Lake looked incredibly smaller then it actually is. Other mountains and hills also jutted out of the earth, but none of them to be as high up as we were right now; how close we were to the sky.
"Hellooooo!" I yelled out the window of the old fire tower. My three friends laughed as I did this. Down on the ground, the friend who was afraid of heights called up to us and waved.
Carved into the metal of the tower were initials and names of others who had visited the tower. Some dates were all the way back to the 80's. I saw a lot of things like 'Greg loves Jenny' and 'Tom and Barbra forever'. Some names I actually recognized. I saw many carvings that read 'Rest In Peace Donald Phelps'. Donald Phelps was a boy who lived on my road who drowned about 4 years ago now.
I found a nail laying on the ground and I carved 'Holliann Bergin, 2010'. I made my mark in this tower and wondered silently how many people would read my name and wonder who I was, just like I'm reading this names and wondering who they are.
A gust of wind shakes the tower, and we all stop and stay very still. We laugh afterwards at how unsafe this tower is, and how it didn't stop us from climbing it. It crosses my mind briefly that my father will probably kill me when I tell him I climbed the tower. He's told me more then once not to do it.
This wasn't the first time I had been to the top of this tower or this mountain. But I remember this visit the most vividly. I did come up here once during a sunset, and that was absolutely gorgeous. The red and orange sky looked like liquid fire that was ready to engulf us.
I stuck my head out the window and looked around. I was above the birds. I was above the tallest of all the trees.
This place became instantly special to me after that. It made me see how small I really was. Not small in a negative way. I'm only one person and outside of that fire tower was the whole world. From here, I could see just how huge it was, and this wasn't even close to the whole world. This was my world. This forest and that lake, these people, the rust on the tower. It was all apart of my world. Appreciating an old tower, admiring some trees, enjoying the company of some misfits. The simplicity of it all... that's my world. Places like this, surrounded by this overwhelming wilderness, paint the canvas that is my life.
Someone told me once that the people and the place you're in doesn't determine how happy you are; you determine how happy you are, but I've always disagreed. I could be with one person in Bangor and be so unhappy I want to rip my eyes out. And then I'm with these people here in the woods and I'm so blissfully happy it seems unreal. I've always believed that your location has a lot to do with your happiness. I think that the place can make the person.
Places like this helped me become who I am.