Picture This: In Thrall Behind Calton Hill

March in Edinburgh is a convocation of gusts, skirls, gales, and winds carousing over Auld Reekie’s seven hills. One by one, I tick off my ascents up their slopes: Arthur’s Seat and Castle Rock, Calton and Corstorphine, Braid and Blackford and Craiglockhart. Of them all Calton Hill is the most peculiar. I wander across its crown, past unfinished memorials and strange obelisks, like an interloper amidst the wrecked memories of an amnesiac. There is romance in that these follies have been left here. Touching flaws. An empty path continues east, winding down the back of Calton Hill. I have nowhere to be; I let the wind guide me.

Back here, Edinburgh opens its heart to me. The hill has grown wild with purple, yellow, and white flowers blossoming in its mane. The eminence of Arthur’s Seat looks over the long incline of the Salisbury Crags onto this vision. The moment reverberates upon my nerves. I feel flush. There are grasses pirouetting in the wind and shadows flitting over these colorful bells silently clanging against each other. I am in thrall to a thing I cannot name. So much misunderstanding. So much left to the overmatched imagination. So much waiting to be blown back into our minds.