On The Level

I'm feeling a little woozy still. It may be the fact that I ran my once-yearly ten kilometer race, and my muscles are not as young and springy as they used to be. It may be that I have had a week's vacation with house guests in and out and lots of extra food and late nights. Whatever the reason, whatever the excuse, I am certain that part of the answer can be traced to my trip to The Mystery Spot yesterday afternoon.
What is The Mystery Spot? My first inclination is to suggest that any explanation or description would sound ridiculous and fantastical without any hard evidence to back it up. All I know for certain is that four grown-ups and a ten-year-old spent the majority of the past twenty-four hours trying to explain all the things we saw and experienced there. Gravity is askew there. Objects shrink and grow without explanation. Okay, there are lots of explanations, but none can account for the fact that my son's compass began to twist wildly as he walked up the hill toward the Spot. Redwood trees with limbs that grow on only one side, eucalyptus trees that lean at disconcerting angles away from the Spot. These are just some of the disconcerting observations we made as we wandered around this gravitational anomaly.
It could be that the light-headed sensation that I had this afternoon came as a result of running six-plus miles before having a proper breakfast, but I would like to think that it should remain more mysterious, or as Oscar Wilde put it, “The final mystery is oneself.”