I am sitting on a ribbon that tops the craggy mountaintops of North China, the distant laughter of tourists are drowned out by the rustling dry leaves around me and even though I am breaking a serious law in a Communist country. My means are justified by an ending sense of satisfaction from one of the most visited sites in the world. My left leg dangles over a drop that would surely cement a lasting impression of the Wall's stature, and my neck seeks shelter in the shell of my coat. The zigzagging mountains ahead look nearly impossible to climb, but somehow thousands of years ago, a man thought it wise to add twenty more feet of troubles for intruders. It is snowing upwards with white bud tree petals, and I can gather the faintest scent of their aroma.
As if we don't time travel enough on this globe-trotting adventure, I jump yet again (backwards this time) to moments near Charley Creek when the air was changing and the bare trees led my imagination to reveal its potential. The true magic of the Great Wall is not in its breadth and magnitude, but it is in the crumbles, where these once natural materials attempt to return to Earth and give in to the wind.
I, in my man-made coat, sit sheltered and sniffling from the weather that chills and astounds me. I, too, will one day crumble, hopefully after being something grand, and return my natural essence to the world that provided me the chance. I am one of few who can sit where I am, but this sensation can be acquired within a foot's step from a front door or a sidewalk. This nature is the same everywhere, but it is the man that transforms the land that looks on.
Just as the gutters jut out from the vertical surface, so does my left foot, now asleep from neglect. The mountains echo back every noise from the city below, as if to say "that car horn was annoying…here, you listen and tell me it's not." How long would it take to sit here and feel uninspired, to do something great, to live outdoors, to sense the world, to feel like a part of the human race. I guess that would be until the next tourist walks by and ruins your moment in history.