Light beauty in Darkness

Alejandra Chavez

Professor K. Rogers

2/19/13

English 1A

Light beauty in Darkness

Have you ever found yourself in a new place you have never been, but surrounding you there is the darkness of the night? It feels like when you need to get up to go to the bathroom at night, you get up and its dark, but instead of you knowing exactly what surrounds you because it is your home and its familiar, this time, it is like your spending the night at your friend’s house for the very first time and it’s so unfamiliar. My experience was just like that when waking up at the crack of dawn, to go with our church family to go up in the hills to pray. Unsure of what new place I was about to encounter and what was going to surround me. Little did I know that what was about to surround me when the sun came up was a beautiful side of the mountain, before then i would only sense the sounds, smells, tastes, touch, of what was only a shadow of what I could see. 

            Completely tired from the night before, only having five hours of sleep, an annoying sound woke me up, it was my boyfriend which “he was not annoying”, it was the phone, he was calling me to tell me to wake up because he was on his way in less than fifteen minutes to pick me up. The house was absolutely quite, my body aching that it was still tired and did not want to get out of bed, but i was determined to go. Hearing how cold it was going to be I dress up in different types of layers; my two layers of pants, three layers of shirts not including my warm jacket, added to my two scarfs and gloves, this warm, big, layered, short girl was ready to go, after looking in the mirror at my crazy hairdo and brushing out the nasty taste of morning breath. Hearing the car engine roar, I ran out to get in the car with the heater high on blast, my boyfriend and I were on our way to church. Feeling the warm air from the heater made me feel cozy, but looking around at 5:15am in the morning, all I could see was the fog which looked like a lot of mist. Once arriving to the church I could see the bright light of the church a block away, entering the parking lot I saw the cars of the brothers and sister from the church in Davis, turning around with smiles and shaking a little from the coldness of the morning they were all excited to see us. Greeting everyone with super cozy warm hugs and kisses. 

            It was 5:40 am and it was time to go to the mountain by Lake Barryessa, with my boyfriend and a brother from the church in the front and me and one of my favorite two ladies in the back. Even though some time went by, it was still very cold but inside the truck it was warm. Looking around I had absolutely no idea where we were heading, I knew it was a mountain, and I saw some pictures of it from the previous time they had gone on Facebook, but I was completely clueless. What surrounded us was darkness with every once in a while passing a yellow looking street light, aside from that, there was just the darkness of the night through the county road. After picking up a couple of people from the Winters gas station we headed for about another fifteen minutes suddenly i saw bright yellow lights that looked big although when I  looked from the truck I started to look at them closer, they looked like little mini light coming from boats that looked like they were on a small river. I could not see much of the river but what I could see was a small glare that something wavy was there. I was a little bit scared of  the truck falling over, I remembered a conversation that I had heard previously that week that if you’re not careful driving you could almost fall off to the sides of the mountain. My bones started shaking a bit but my heart starting beating hard since I am scared of heights. Hector my boyfriend continue to follow the cars in front of us, and as I was looking at front I saw everyone make a right, it look scary, then they turned to the left, I though as they turned both times that surely there is a river and were heading start for it. 

            Looking closely I could finally see something familiar; it was a round trail that i saw from the pictures. As everyone start getting off the cars, it was still pretty dark but I could see a little bit more light. Everyone gather around each other with our blankets and jackets and we begin to pray together, just after we all found places of our own to pray. I was a little hesitant at first because it was dark and it was a side of the mountain, so in my mind I could be next to some bugs or even a snake, specifically spiders, I am not a big fan of THOSE THINGS, and really I had no idea if I could be bumping in to anything because I really could not see because it was dark. I began to concentrate and start to pray, I could feel that cold mist in my face, the smell of the air was so clean, i felt like it was so pure. I could see a bit of the grass and the rock I was standing near, but I could hear the voice of the church family giving thanks to God, praying and telling him how awesome and wonderful he was. It reminded me of when Jesus went to pray alone in the morning, I thought to myself, "this is what it must of felt like," I am sure there must of been some cold mornings. All I could feel was a mixture of the cold on my skin of the mist; there was not a breeze just the cold mist air, with my warm layer including my warm blanket that was covering me. As time passed by when I hardly notice it, it was already shining from the morning sun, walking around and finishing praying I looked up and it was beautiful. My boyfriend was just finishing as well when I saw him from a distance and waved to me to come near, getting there he told me that he wanted to show me his moms favorite place to pray. Getting nearby his mom, there was an edge on the side, Hector told me to look down and what I saw and heard was beautiful, it was a small river with different shapely splendid rocks. 

            After praying together and then going near the river and then once again we wanting to pray  specifically for the Pastor, we  all headed out to finish our prayer journey with laughter and silly childish adventures, by walking through the river. The river was so clear, I wanted to drink from it because I was so astonished of how clear it was, the smell was still the freshness of the cool air, but as I got more curious about the water, and I could not help myself but sticking my hands in the water. Its was so cold nevertheless wonderful, it was only three feet high not even, maybe even two, but, I could see clearly through it all the way to the bottom. Jumping from rock to rock our adventure was starting to end. Driving back down to the valley, I could see a camping site, that near it was a narrow river with boats parked to the side of it. Then I could see clearly the houses in winters by the gas station.

            My journey was wonderful, it show me that even though I could not really see what was in front of me, somehow I could still feel the scenes, the touches, the smells and the sounds, except realizing that beauty was there, even when I could see it. I could say all the beauty quotes or analogies like, never judge a book from its cover and that, in a odd since the beauty held from within. But I can now have an open mind that even not being able to see what was directly in front of me that the beauty was there.