Special Place - English 101

Yesica Godinez

Essay #1

Reid/English 101-W

September 18, 2015

Essay #1: Special Place

“Mrs. Molina, I received the results for your biopsy and I am sorry to tell you, you have breast cancer,” the doctor said to her with his eyes fixed in hers.  I felt as if the blood in my body was being drained out of my feet and felt very weak.  Mom looked at me with her pale face now as red as a tomato.  I could not translate the words; I brought my hands to my face and started to cry.  My mom walked over to where I was sitting and she whispered in Spanish, “Don’t cry.  I am not going to die.”  I did not sleep that night and around three in the morning I decided to take a drive.

It was still dark out and hardly any cars in the streets.  I filled up the gas tank in the jeep and decided to get on the 5 north with no sense of direction.  My mind was in auto-pilot, I was driving with no music and I was not paying attention which direction I was going.  It must have been 5:00 a.m. when I noticed the horizon painting the sky with a mustard yellow being blended into a faint white light starting to reveal clusters of clouds.  It was nothing but hills for miles and miles and I no longer knew where I was.  I made a U-turn to head south again and noticed a road leading towards a hill.

The two-way road against the edge of the hill was steep and I shifted the Jeep to 4x4.  I could hear the engine fighting gravity as I kept driving higher.  I reached the big boulder rock and pulled over.  I climbed on the boulder rock and the sky looked as if it was on fire.  The magnificent golden color mixed with a deep orange almost red, exposed the clouds that had been hiding in the darkness of the night.  The rays of sunlight escaping behind the mountain looked as if the sun was piercing its way out of the mountain and then, the spectacular ball of fires rises from behind the hill and I could feel its warmth touching my face. The lovely spectacle lasts only seconds and even though it happens every day, the scene is not the same.

Surrounded by Desert Mountains I felt alone.  I laid down on the sandy terrain and took a deep breath as I contemplated the monstrous rock looking back at me, I felt its weight on my chest and it made it hard to breathe.  My soul was still healing from a harsh unexpected divorce but the thought of my mother dying felt devastating to the point I felt how the strength in every fiber in my body abandoned me.  When I stood up the canyon was blowing turbulent wind.

About six miles from the main road entrance, the temperature instantly drops about ten degrees and the sand color dissolves into a green blanket over enormous mountains  Driving on the 15 one can never imagine the sierras are just behind those desert mountains.  I indulged myself in the scent of pine trees. As I reached the highest peak, I noticed the neighbor mountain had the symmetry of a man’s face sleeping on his back.  The gusts of wind high overhead made the leaves whisper a peaceful theme.  The way the ferns capture the sunlight makes them seem as if they were glowing.  

As I started walking downhill towards the meadow, I was transported into my childhood.  My grandparents raised me in their ranch and the perfume in the wind was the same.  My grandmother would always say, “Do you hear the birds sing? They are grateful for another day.  They sing to glorify God.”  I could hear the bird’s symphony in between the trees.  I felt my heart swell up with pain, remembering my grandmother died from cancer too, stomach cancer.         The shade from the tall pine trees provide the perfect shade which helps with staying cool as you walk down the meadow.  As I approached the flat surface, the tall grass danced with the wind.  The scent of sun-warmed grass filled the air and the splashes or deep purple and brilliant gold from wildflowers decorate the meadow.  At a distance, the clusters of cattle look pint-sized.  The rocks that mark the path for the river feel very silky.  The river has vanished due to the lack of rain and extreme heat.  There is a small swamp filled with mosquitos and a few small fish in the small current of water leading to the swamp is polluted with ash from the forest fires higher up in the mountain.