High Places

On Dissipation

Being at the top of Pen y Fan, I noticed something I hadn’t quite put words to before.

A midpoint between feeling tiny and feeling vast.

The scale, the height, the ability to see layered, undulating horizons for miles, shrinks you down to size in a way that feels good.

You become pleasantly dissipated. Even obsolete.

And yet, in the same breath, that same scale, looked at slightly differently, does the opposite.

The lack of walls, buildings, trees, edges makes you feel diffuse. Expanded. Connected to everything in view.

Both things are true at once.