When I enter the world, I see for the first time in my life. I feel quite strange, as if I had just been born and this moment, right here, was my first moment of existence. Seventeen years haven't gone by. I am seconds old. My eyes are half squeezed shut, so that my vision can't focus. A violently bright light filters through to my eyes.

As much as I am excited to rake my eyes over the world, I am just as equally terrified. Seeing was all I ever wanted, but now that it's here I need to catch my breath. A moment to prepare myself.

What if the world existing in my imagination is better than the real one? Many people daydream about their perfect life; money, finding love, a dream career, but when it actually happens to them, they feel empty. The idea of their dream was better than the reality of it. To me, that sounds like the saddest thing ever. That is my fear. That mountains won't be noble. That the oceans blue is dull. That sunrises won't take my breath away.

The wind blew, and it made a very pure sound, like a toddler sighing in its sleep. To me it seemed the wind was encouraging me to open my eyes. Riding on the wind was the smell of black licorice. My curiosity overwhelmed me.

I opened my eyes. I blinked.

My fears became olive oil, dripping from the bottle and sizzling to nothing on the frying pan. This world was not going to disappoint me. The daylight about me was beginning to die, leaving a palette of swirling paint in the sky. Shades of peach, lavender, and rose adorned the horizon. All the clouds in the sky were transformed into gold bundles of fluffy stardust. A crusade of birds silhouetted black against the explosion of colors flew by, chasing each other in a never ending game of tag. With open beaks, they spooned up the nights first few moths. They disappeared, swallowed up by the sun.

I stood on a sloping hill covered in a fuzzy beard made of Persian-green grass. There seemed to be miles of gently rolling hills spreading out before me. Some were swarmed with armies of six-foot tall weeds that I imagined could find their way into your nose, your mouth, your ears; twist around your ankle and trip you. The weeds were the source of the strong smell of black licorice.

Other hills were a bit less intimidating, speckled with hoards of wildflowers. In the dim light, I saw hundreds of different colors growing on the hills. Tomorrow when the sun came up I would see these colors even brighter.

At seventeen years old, I finally understood what color is. When you're blind, no one can quite put it into words for you to understand. It is something that can never be defined by humans. I now know the difference between the soft pink of tulips and the desperate colors of a sunset.

Stalks of lupine taught me the color purple. Buttercups showed me yellow and cream blended together. There is so much to see. I want to see it all. Below my feet, dandelions force their way out into the cool air; the color of a splash from the sun. Looking at the two vastly different flowers, I can hardly believe that they are both dandelions. Wind bent one of the white dandelions, and feathery tufts took flight, dancing through the air. I gasped, a childlike curiosity latching on to me. They were like fairies in flight. There was a myth I had once heard, about blowing on a dandelion and making a wish. With a plucked flower in hand I blew, sending the seeds launching off into the sky. I made a wish, of course; I couldn't help it. Everything here was so various, so new. I would make sure I missed nothing. No flowers petals left untouched. No smell left unnoticed. No star unseen. I was not much more than a child in nature, and perhaps that was a very good thing.

I felt lost in a reverie. Any moment now I would jolt awake, back in my own stuffy room on the farmhouse, my eyes snuffed with eternal darkness. My mother would be running my bath. She would take my hand even though I knew the way perfectly well, and settle me into the warm water. There she would wait, with no allowance of any sort of privacy, until my skin had pruned and she forced me to get out, leaving the comfort of the warmth and forcing me into the obligation of another horrendous day. I thought now that if that happened to me, I would surely die. How could I go back to that empty shell of a life now that I've seen what the world is like? I could not. All this I could thank my sister for.

I remember the day she had told me about Tierrados.