Description of surrounding

DESCRIPTION OF MY SURROUNDING

You’re in a jungle. A tropical rainforest. It’s possible to tell even before opening your eyes. It is the smell of wet earth and the warm humid air making your clothes stick to your body. But mostly you notice it because of the noise. There is something special about the sounds in a rainforest. The constant buzz envelopes you, almost making it feel like you are under water. The sounds alone are not loud, it’s the overwhelming density of them when they all come together.

   You open your eyes and all you see is green. Trees tower hundreds of meters above you forming a green ceiling. Only a few lonely rays of sunshine reach the ground looking almost holy as they peak through the canopy. 

    As you keep walking you hear the sounds of branches snapping beneath your feet and the bushes rustling as you brush against them but in the distance you hear something greater. The tremulous thunder of water forcefully falling. Further ahead you see a clearing where the trees seem to make a halt. As you come closer you can now see the cascade in all its glory. Rainbows form in the white clouds of vapor at the bottom of the waterfall as the dark water flows into a river. 

   Carved out of the rock at one of the sides of the waterfall there are three small lagoons. Almost cave like they lay in the stonewall with water so turquoise it looks artificial. Inspired by the moment you decide to take a bath and as you lay in the warm water you notice a beautiful orchid in one of the closest trees. “The most beautiful parasite” you think looking at its roots firmly wrapped around one of the branches in the tree. 

   As you lay there in the lagoon, feeling more relaxed than ever you can’t help but wonder how the liveliest place on earth can feel so calm.   

WHY I CHOSE THIS SETTING

This particular setting doesn’t actually exist. At least not in the real world. It’s a place that I began imagining when I was about 5 years old and I got the best Christmas present imaginable. A big book about felines. I was specifically fascinated by the jaguar, a muscular animal with the strongest jaws on earth- yet it was so gracious. I would spend hours looking at the images on page 34, watching this majestic animal in the dark jungle that was so full of life. After a while it was my favorite game to pretend to be a jaguar living in the amazing rainforest. 

   Everyone who knows me knows that I think a lot, it’s the major reason it takes me so long to fall asleep- I just have so much to think about! When I was younger I would stay awake hours imagining  complete stories in this jungle and I would do it so often that I even dreamt about it. This explains why there are lagoons with turquoise water in the jungle even though that actually doesn’t exist in the Amazons. 

   As the years went by I started forgetting about this place until one day when I was listening to a relaxation tape to help me sleep. The tape told me to think of an imaginary place that was only mine where I could relax and leave all my troubles behind. I thought it was interesting that I immediately pictured this jungle without even thinking about it. I started noticing other people having similar imaginary places, often expressing it in song lyrics.