I was walking from a different event that had a hectic, city-like feel. It was far busier than the next scenery I experienced. Megan accompanied me on the journey and her engagement in the trip was minimal but her presence made me feel safe. We traveled until we reached rural farmlands. There were rectangular fields that seemed to stretch on towards the horizon and they were all deprived of flourishing crops except for one in particular.

My vision transferred from a general, elevated view of the collaboration of rectangles to a zoomed-in picture of the distinct one that did not house dead crops. We walked into the front yard of the home that secluded itself with greenery and looked around in awe. Everything was so green. Not a deep, forest green or a vile, toxic green, but the kind of green that only exists at the very beginning of spring time. The kind that integrates yellow into the veins of the bright, crisp plant leaves. The plants harmoniously breathed in and out, their leaves inhaling and exhaling in various degrees of motion. There were criss-cross fences all around the property where many, many vines invaded the woodwork. A cloudless sky hung above the highest of the fences.

I noticed a youthful, shirtless boy with bronze skin huddled by the outdoor living space. He looked up and I learned that he was of Asian heritage–Japanese was my guess. His expression ensured me that we were welcome in this place. As the afternoon aged, our interactions became playful and sweet and his company enlightened me. His mother lingered around, but did not hover. She was a hard, old woman whose movements were slow and wise.

The boy informed me that his name was Yin Yin, “like Yin and Yang but without the Yang part.” I thought of the Yin and Yang symbol and decided that he accurately represented balance, even if half of it was missing from his title.

Yin showed me his cat who was perched uninterestedly on a nearby floral couch. Swirled within her fine, soft fur, the feline displayed an intricate leopard-like pattern. Yin told me to look attentively into the animal’s eyes and that I would see flakes of gold, emerald greens, and bruise-colored indigos. I did as he said and was hypnotized. The colors twisted and floated like suspended galaxies in space within the cat’s glassy eyes and it mesmerized me. I could only stare for so long before the intense energy from her eyes made me feel nauseous. I carefully backed away from the cat and realization struck me. When I looked into the cat’s eyes I was not simply looking at a cat, but into a sliver of the cosmos. I transported to the place that existed within her eyes and floated with the currents of gravity as I summersaulted in my own weightlessness through space. I witnessed corners of the universe not yet discovered by man and compared the purity of it to our inhabited Earth. In outer space there were no smashed cigarette buds or smeared gum stains on manmade cement sidewalks. There were no skyscrapers or factories exhaling gray, thick smoke stacks into the atmosphere. It wasn’t challenging to breathe and no depressed, unbathed homeless men took shelter in crowded subway stations. The grimy hands of humanity were no where to be found in the eye’s of what the cat showed me. I felt a deeper connection with the natural world and an inclination and a responsibility to preserve what is left of Earth’s natural beauty.

I entered Yin’s home and observed the pictures that seemed to dance in the sun-flooded room. They gently hung against the creamy, yellow walls above eclectic pieces of furniture. The photos were all black and white–some of candid laughing grandchildren and others included the faces of determined, beaten soldiers from wars that I had not yet been alive for.

Across the room at the opening of the hallway, a poster lazily hung at my eye level with Scotch tape at the corners. I sauntered up to it. It turned out to be two duplicate photos of what reminded me of a tropical vacation ad. A massive palm tree that dangled coconuts grew on the left side and white sand beaches holding translucent waters filled up the remainder of the photo. Consuming energies from the right represented a potential vacation aimed at enticing overworked, unhappy people who needed a break from their lives. Ideas of a temporal happiness soon to be broken by a short, pleasant week after returning to their cubicles filled my thoughts. The other image emitted the concept of the vacation of life. It told me that there was no need to wait for the brochure or the break. That an entire lifetime on Earth is deserving of calling itself a vacation. It did not request a literal, tropical setting to fulfill this notion. It knew that every individual has their own perception of found paradise. I fell out of a trance and into the parallel corridor wall. I examined the twin images curiously as I leaned on the drywall.

Dazed, I thought of how silly it was to hang two of the exact same photos right next to each other as I giggled to myself. I headed back outside to the peaceful, green yard where Megan, Yin, and Yin’s mother sat and happily conversed. The cat lay beside Yin’s mother on the arm of a tattered chair. From behind her whiskers she watched me with a smirk.